Volume 37 - Article 19 | Pages 599–634  

Childbearing patterns among immigrant women and their daughters in Spain: Over-adaptation or structural constraints

By Amparo González-Ferrer, Teresa Castro Martín, Elisabeth Kraus, Tatiana Eremenko

This article is part of the Special Collection 23 "Childbearing among the Descendants of Immigrants in Europe"

Abstract

Background: Spain, a country with one of the lowest fertility levels in the world, has recently received intense immigration flows that may contribute to fertility recovery.

Objective: The objective of this study is to examine whether the childbearing behaviour of immigrant women and their descendants shows a pattern of convergence with that of Spanish women born in or after 1950.

Methods: After merging data from the Fertility and Values Survey (2006) and the National Immigrants Survey (2007), we analyse the transition to first, second, and third birth using event history models, to identify variations in timing and incidence of birth transitions between native Spanish women and immigrant groups.

Results: Previous literature has found that migration disrupts immigrants’ fertility only temporarily; however, in the case of Spain, most migrant women who moved before starting family formation do not seem to fully compensate for migration-related disruption of fertility at a later stage. Our findings challenge the widespread belief that immigrants’ childbearing alone will allow Spain to leave behind the current lowest-low and latest-late fertility scenario.

Contribution: This article analyzes for the first time the fertility of different immigrant generations in Spain compared to native women, applying event history techniques. Our findings challenge conventional wisdom that immigration will improve very low fertility levels in Spain.

Author's Affiliation

• Amparo González-Ferrer - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Spain EMAIL
• Teresa Castro Martín - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Spain EMAIL
• Elisabeth Kraus - Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain EMAIL
• Tatiana Eremenko - Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED), France EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Mixed marriages between immigrants and natives in Spain: The gendered effect of marriage market constraints
Volume 39 - Article 1

Partnership formation and dissolution among immigrants in the Spanish context
Volume 35 - Article 1

Co-ethnic marriage versus intermarriage among immigrants and their descendants: A comparison across seven European countries using event-history analysis
Volume 39 - Article 17

Change and continuity in the fertility of unpartnered women in Latin America, 1980–2010
Volume 38 - Article 51

Social policies, separation, and second birth spacing in Western Europe
Volume 37 - Article 37

What drives Senegalese migration to Europe? The role of economic restructuring, labor demand, and the multiplier effect of networks
Volume 35 - Article 13

The contributions of childbearing within marriage and within consensual union to fertility in Latin America, 1980-2010
Volume 34 - Article 29

The reproductive context of cohabitation in comparative perspective: Contraceptive use in the United States, Spain, and France
Volume 32 - Article 5

Sampling international migrants with origin-based snowballing method: New evidence on biases and limitations
Volume 25 - Article 3

Single motherhood and low birthweight in Spain: Narrowing social inequalities in health?
Volume 22 - Article 27

Is Latin America starting to retreat from early and universal childbearing?
Volume 20 - Article 9

Women’s changing socioeconomic position and union formation in Spain and Portugal
Volume 19 - Article 41

Not truly partnerless: Non-residential partnerships and retreat from marriage in Spain
Volume 18 - Article 16

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Higher incomes are increasingly associated with higher fertility: Evidence from the Netherlands, 2008–2022
Volume 51 - Article 26    | Keywords: fertility, income, inequalities, Netherlands, parenthood

Lowest low fertility in Spain: Insights from the 2018 Spanish Fertility Survey
Volume 51 - Article 19    | Keywords: fertility desires, low fertility, Spain

The short- and long-term determinants of fertility in Uruguay
Volume 51 - Article 10    | Keywords: fertility, panel data, stages of female reproductive life, time series, Uruguay

The big decline: Lowest-low fertility in Uruguay (2016–2021)
Volume 50 - Article 16    | Keywords: adolescent fertility, birth order, fertility, Latin America, ultra-low fertility, Uruguay

Cohort fertility of immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union
Volume 50 - Article 13    | Keywords: age at first birth, assimilation, cohort analysis, fertility, immigration, parity, religiosity