Reproduction at the Margins: Migration and Legitimacy in the New Europe

The fertility of immigrants after arrival: The Italian case

“…If migration was related to labor reasons, it slightly reduced the propensity to become a parent, whereas if the migration was motivated by marriage, it also increased first-birth risks, explaining the elevated childbearing propensities of migrants in the short period (Nedoluzhko and Andersson 2007). However, we can expect that women may also have a child after migration to fill the time during the adjustment period when the employment career is disrupted and social networks broken (Bledsoe 2004;Kulu and Milewski 2007) or to secure their marriage in the country of destination by enlarging the family. Another factor for high fertility of marriagemigrants may be their higher stability in the territory, due to the longer presence of their partner in Italy.…”

“…In fact, while it is true that women can request a residence permit for health reasons in order to deliver in the same country in which their husband is living, it is also true that this is often used as an "emergency" permit for women who lose their legal status but are already in the process of family formation in Italy. Some international literature refers to this as the legitimacy hypothesis (Bledsoe 2004;Bledsoe, Houle, and Sow 2007;Fleischer 2008). The hazard function of giving birth for these women is not proportional to the hazard function of giving birth for women who migrated for other reasons, violating one of the key assumptions of the piecewise-constant exponential model.…”

Family change and migration in the life course

“…Two papers on immigrant fertility suggest that immigrant women have a child shortly after migration (and marriage), among other factors because they wish to secure their legal status in the country of destination and strengthen their position in a traditional family setting (cf. Bledsoe 2004). Similarly, women who move for marriage from one settlement to another within a country may decide to have a child soon because motherhood increases their 'symbolic capital' and 'justifies' their existence in the new social setting, particularly when employment perspectives are not promising.…”

First child of immigrant workers and their descendants in West Germany

“…Finally, we briefly mention another hypothesis that has been increasingly discussed in recent years: The 'legitimacy' hypothesis assumes a causal relationship between international migration, the legal status, and demographic events, such as child birth (Bledsoe 2004, Toulemon and Mazuy 2004, Bledsoe, Houle and Sow 2007. The assumption is: If international migrants aim at gaining citizenship by giving birth in a given country of destination, this would be reflected in relatively high transition rates to a birth soon after arrival.…”