Samenvatting

Between 2001 and 2012 there has been a sharp drop in marriage migration from Turkey and Morocco. The number of migration marriages fell particularly sharply in the years after 2004, after changes were made in the legislation concerning marriage migration: the income and age requirements were raised and passing a pre-entry test became conditional to obtaining a visum. This article aspires to explain this decline of migration marriages among co-ethnics of Turkish and Moroccan origin in the Netherlands. As the strongest decline in the number of migration marriages coincides with the introduction of stricter conditions for marriage migration, the author states that these changes in the law acted as a catalyst for a change in mentality among migrant families of Turkish and Moroccan origin.