Second-generation Moroccan Women in Europe: Higher Education and Labour Market Positioning

This paper deals with the career paths followed by women descendants of Moroccan immigrants in Belgium, focusing particularly on a study of the situation of women with higher educational qualifications, and showing how these daughters of immigrants perceive higher education as advantageous to their position in the family, for the development of their careers, and for their socialisation. Its objective is to demonstrate how education and paid employment are being adopted as strategies for upward mobility by women of Moroccan descent in Belgium. A qualitative approach and a comprehensive interpretive overview was used to gather information from in-depth interviews with women descendants of immigrants in Belgium. The results show that the category of “higher educational qualifications” goes hand in hand with considerable social prestige and leads to a number of social privileges. This is a generation with greater social and psychological motivation in the academic sphere, the product of an appreciation of studying and higher education as a route to social advancement and independence from patriarchal models. The personal development of these women can be understood as a force with the potential to raise the class status of the family as a whole.