Citizenship, Fertility, and Parental Investments

Abstract

Citizenship rights are associated with better economic opportunities for immigrants. This paper studies how in a country with a large fraction of temporary migrants the fertility decisions of foreign citizens respond to a change in the rules that regulate child legal status at birth. The introduction of birthright citizenship in Germany in 2000, represented a positive shock to the returns to investment in child human capital. Consistent with Becker's “quality-quantity” model of fertility, we find that birthright citizenship leads to a reduction in immigrant fertility and an improvement in health and socio-emotional outcomes for the children affected by the reform. (JEL J13, J15, J16, J24)

Understanding Membership in a World of Global Migration: (How) Does Citizenship Matter?

“…Exploiting the exogenous shock of extending birthright citizenship in Germany to certain babies born after 2000, Avitabile, Clots‐Figueras, and Masella () find that having a child granted German citizenship produced a significant increase in parents’ probability of socializing with Germans and reading German newspapers (but no statistically significant difference in using the German language) even though parents’ status did not change. Children granted birthright citizenship were also less likely to be obese, had fewer behavioral problems and greater well‐being, as reported by parents (Avitabile, Clots‐Figueras, and Masella ). The authors adopt economist Gary Becker's “quality–quantity” model of fertility to explain these outcomes: parents with citizen offspring had fewer children, which supposedly let parents invest more in citizen children.…”

“…For example, in 2000, the German Citizenship and Nationality Law gave jus soli citizenship to some German‐born children of immigrants, a sharp break from the noncitizenship of babies born before 2000. Such legislative shocks are theorized to work like a treatment in a random experiment, allowing researchers to identify the independent causal effect of citizenship, net all other individual determinants (Avitabile, Clots‐Figueras, and Masella , ).…”

Naturalization and labor market performance of immigrants in Germany

“… For other studies using the German citizenship law reform as a natural experiment see, e.g., Felfe and Saurer () and Sajons and Clots‐Figureas () on child education outcomes, Avitabile et al . (, ) on immigrant fertility and integration, and Sajons () on outmigration. For other contributions applying instrumental variable estimation to determine the causal effects of naturalization see, e.g., Bevelander and Pendakur () on voting participation and Bevelander and Pendakur () on employment in Sweden, and Fougère and Safi () on employment in France. …”

Population, Migration, Ageing and Health: A Survey

“…Blau also finds indirect evidence of a higher demand for child quality among immigrant than among native women. In a more recent paper, Avitabile et al (2014) use German data to show that the acquisition of citizenship rights is likely to reinforce migrants' preferences for child quality rather than quantity and reduce immigrants' fertility.…”