Perceived Decision-Making Influence in Turkish Migrant Workers' and German Workers' Families

According to Bott (1971), families involved in social support networks show more traditional patterns of role segregation in their authority structure than more isolated families. This hypothesis was tested with samples consisting of 40 Turkish migrant workers' families and 72 German workers' families. The samples were matched in level of education, income, professional status, and mother's work. Bott's hypothesis was not confirmed, because conjugal partners' mutual ratings of influence were not affected by the level of perceived social support. The findings, however, reveal a cross-cultural difference with respect to the familial authority structure in the two sampics. Turkish conjugal partners reported role segregation in the domain of family issues, but joint decision making in the domain of children's issues, whereas the reverse pattern was reported by German conjugal partners. Furthermore, Turkish parents restrict their children's influence to the children's own affairs, whereas German parents accept their children as participating members with influence in the family.