Partnership and fertility trajectories of immigrants and descendants in the United Kingdom: A multilevel multistate event history approach

Abstract

We study the interrelationships between partnership and fertility trajectories of immigrant women and female descendants of immigrants using the UK Household Longitudinal Study. We propose a novel multistate event history approach to analyse the outcomes of unpartnered, cohabiting, and married women. We find that the partnership and fertility behaviours of immigrants and descendants from European and Western countries are similar to those of native women: many cohabit first and then have children and/or marry. Those from countries with conservative family behaviours (e.g. South Asian countries) marry first and then have children. Women from the Caribbean show the weakest link between partnership changes and fertility: some have births outside unions; some form a union and have children thereafter. Family patterns have remained relatively stable across migrant generations and birth cohorts, although marriage is being postponed in all groups. Our findings on immigrants support the socialization hypothesis, whereas those on descendants are in line with the minority subculture hypothesis.

Union formation and fertility amongst immigrants from Pakistan and their descendants in the United Kingdom: A multichannel sequence analysis

“…This study extends previous analysis by Mikolai and Kulu (2022b) on immigrant/native differences in family behaviour in the United Kingdom. By focussing on the Pakistani group specifically, we find evidence for the persistence of conservative family formation patterns (direct marriage) compared to ancestral natives, supporting previous findings which have combined Pakistani and Bangladeshi populations (Berrington 1994;Dubuc 2012; Kulu and Hannemann 2016;Wilson 2019).…”

“…There are contextual differences between origin and destination countries relating to policy and cultural differences in values and preferences which influence both union formation and fertility. Whilst measurement of culture is difficult, general cultural proximity of a migrant's origin to the dominant native culture seems to correlate with behaviours more typical of natives, as studies in France (Pailhé 2015), Sweden (Andersson, Obućina, and Scott 2015), and the United Kingdom (Hannemann and Kulu 2015;Mikolai and Kulu 2022b) suggest. Several theories exist which attempt to explain immigrant native differentials; these can apply to both union formation and fertility due to their intertwined nature (Rahnu et al 2015).…”

“…The dependent variable is the identified cluster with independent variables: immigrant background, gender, ten-year birth cohort, and highest education ever reported. We apply cross-sectional weights to the analysis and adjust standard errors to account for the clustering of respondents at household level (Mikolai and Kulu 2022b), and the use of ethnic minority boosts in the UKHLS. For robustness we ran unweighted models, which produce comparable results for the differences between migrant generations and natives.…”

“…While previous research has investigated the union formation and fertility of the Pakistani population separately, few have studied the trajectories simultaneously. Those that have, have applied sequence analysis techniques to the period of time around migration and not the entire life course (Mikolai and Kulu 2022a) or have used multistate event history models (Mikolai and Kulu 2022b). We build upon on the research of Mikolai and Kulu (2022b), who, like us, use data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS).…”

“…Those that have, have applied sequence analysis techniques to the period of time around migration and not the entire life course (Mikolai and Kulu 2022a) or have used multistate event history models (Mikolai and Kulu 2022b). We build upon on the research of Mikolai and Kulu (2022b), who, like us, use data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS). Our focus is specifically on differences between the Pakistani group and the native majority, and we include both men and women.…”