Volume 17 - Article 29 | Pages 859–896  

First child of immigrant workers and their descendants in West Germany: Interrelation of events, disruption, or adaptation?

By Nadja Milewski

This article is part of the Special Collection 6 „Interdependencies in the Life Course: Family, Fertility, and Migration“

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of immigration on the transition to motherhood among women from Turkey, Italy, Spain, Greece, and the former Yugoslavia in West Germany. A hazard-regression analysis is applied to data of the German Socio-Economic Panel study. We distinguish between the first and second immigrant generation. The results show that the transition rates to a first birth of first-generation immigrants are elevated shortly after they move country. Elevated birth risks that occur shortly following the immigration are traced back to an interrelation of events - these are migration, marriage, and first birth.
We do not find evidence of a fertility-disruption effect after immigration. The analysis indicates that second-generation immigrants are more adapted to the lower fertility levels of West Germans than their mothers’ generation is.

Author’s Affiliation

• Nadja Milewski - Bundesinstitut für Bevölkerungsforschung (BiB), Germany EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

A decade of life-course research on fertility of immigrants and their descendants in Europe
Volume 40 - Article 46

Is there an association between marital exogamy of immigrants and nonmigrants and their mental health? A two-partners approach
Volume 40 - Article 21

Family change and migration in the life course: An introduction
Volume 17 - Article 19

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

The partnership context of first parenthood – and how it varies by parental class and birth cohort in the United Kingdom
Volume 53 - Article 16    | Keywords: cohabitation, cohort analysis, event history, event history analysis, family formation, intergenerational inequality, marriage, parental socio-economic status, parenthood, single parenthood, United Kingdom

The distortion of fertility due to migration: A comparative analysis of migrants in the Netherlands and stayers in Poland
Volume 53 - Article 12    | Keywords: international migration, low-fertility, migrants, Netherlands, Poland, selectivity

The partnership, fertility, and employment trajectories of immigrants in the United Kingdom: An intersectional life course approach using three-channel sequence analysis
Volume 53 - Article 10    | Keywords: employment, fertility, immigrants, multi-channel sequence analysis, partnership, United Kingdom

Where do we go from here? Partnership-parenthood trajectories of cohabitation as first union during young adulthood in the United States
Volume 53 - Article 9    | Keywords: cohabitation, family inequality, fertility, marriage, race/ethnicity, transition to adulthood, union formation, United States of America

Fertility differences across immigrant generations in the United Kingdom
Volume 52 - Article 33    | Keywords: event history analysis, fertility, immigrant, second generation, United Kingdom