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

• Published in: Demographic research Vol. 37; pp. 599 - 634
• Main Authors: González-Ferrer, Amparo, Castro-Martín, Teresa, Kraus, Elisabeth Katharina, Eremenko, Tatiana
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research 01.09.2017
• Subjects: Children; Daughters; Demographic aspects; Demography; Descendants; descendants of immigrants; Family; Female fertility; Fertility; Fertility rates; Gender equality; Human migration; Immigrants; Motherhood; natives; Research Article; Spain; Surveys; Women; Spain
• ISSN: 1435-9871; 1435-9871
• DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2017.37.19

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. 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. 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. First-generation migrant women have an earlier transition to motherhood than Spaniards. By contrast, their overall rates of transition to second birth--with the exception of women born in the Maghreb--are lower than those of Spaniards, while their rates of transition to third birth are again higher. When the analysis is restricted to immigrant women who arrived childless in Spain, all of them delay the transition to first birth even later than Spaniards, with the exception of those born in other EU countries. Among descendants of immigrants, a trend to convergence with natives emerges among women of Latin American origin, while those from the Maghreb remain more likely to experience a transition to a second and third birth.