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Table 2 How immigrants are operationalised in relevant studies, overall, and by keyword, multiple classifications possible, 2023

From: Towards a precise and reflexive use of migration-related terminology in quantitative research: criticism and suggestions

Keywords

Foreign born

Foreign citizenship

Ethnicity

Language

Migration Background

Country of origin

Undefined

Overall

170

54

189

61

78

110

48

Background

59

14

38

18

61

37

17

Origin

2

 

1

 

1

2

 

Generation

42

6

65

4

39

39

2

Ethnicity

  

15

 

1

  

Language

20

13

35

17

4

18

5

Education

5

3

8

1

1

3

2

  1. ‘Foreign born’ refers to people born outside of the country of residence, or direct descendants of people born outside of the country of residence; ‘foreign citizenship’ refers to people who do not have the citizenship of the country of residence, or direct descendants thereof; ‘ethnicity’ refers to ethnic groups, people identified by their name, or people ‘from’ a specific country and their direct descendants, such as ‘Turks’, two articles referring to ‘Muslims’ in this logic were also included; ‘language’ refers to non-native language skills; ‘migration background’ refers to official definitions of migration background in countries like Germany or the Netherlands, where citizenship and country of birth are considered, as well as descendants according to this definition, we included studies that used data sources where such an official definition is provided by a ready-made variable even where this was not specifically mentioned; ‘country of origin’ refers to specific countries of birth outside the country of residence, including world regions; ‘undefined’ captures studies where we could not identify the classification, typically as control or predictor variables that were not defined