Fertility Patterns Among Turkish Women in Turkey and Abroad: The Effects of International Mobility, Migrant Generation, and Family Background

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the fertility behavior of Turkish women in Europe from a context-of-origin perspective. Women with different migration biographies (first-generation, 1.5-generation, second-generation migrants, and return migrants) are compared with ''stayer'' women from the same regions of origin in Turkey. This approach provides us with new insights into the study of the effects of international migrations. First-, second-, and third-birth transitions are analyzed using data from the 2000 Families Study, which was conducted in 2010 and 2011 in Turkey and in western Europe. The classical hypotheses of disruption, interrelated events, adaptation, socialization, and selectivity/composition are developed with reference to the context-of-origin perspective. To account for socialization and family-related composition effects, we also look at family characteristics. Our findings provide no support for the disruption hypothesis, but suggest that the first-generation migrant women have higher first-birth risks than the stayers. However, this gap can be fully explained by differences in marriage duration. Differences in composition-namely in educational attainment-account for our finding that the second migrant generation has lower first-birth transition rates than the women in Turkey. Except for the number of siblings, the family influence, including the processes of intergenerational transmission, is minor and hardly accounts for the migrant-stayer differences in birth transitions. Most remarkably, the analyses show that the second-and third-birth risks of almost all of & Helen Baykara-Krumme

Fertility Intentions across Immigrant Generations in Sweden. Do Patterns of Adaptation Differ by Gender and Origin?

“…Thus, while Mussino and Strozza (2012) fi nd support for the mechanism, other European studies do not (e.g. Mayer/Riphahn 2000;Andersson 2004;Milewski 2007Milewski , 2010Baykara-Krumme/Milewski 2017). In Sweden, disruption seems to affect primarily female immigrants with an origin either in low-or medium-HDI non-European countries or in European non-EU countries (Persson/Hoem 2014).…”

“…Among the different hypotheses on immigrant fertility proposed in earlier research (e.g. Milewski 2007Milewski , 2010Sobotka 2008;Mussino/Strozza 2012;Baykara-Krumme/ Milewski 2017), the socialisation and adaptation perspectives are most relevant for this study, since they are also applicable to the longer-term, intergenerational effects of migration. Socialisation into the culture of the origin country on the one hand, and adaptation to the culture and institutions of the destination country on the other can be seen as two competing processes that can explain either persistent differences or convergence relative to non-immigrant patterns.…”

The Same Fertility Ideals as in the Country of Origin? A Study of the Personal Ideal Family Size among Immigrant Women in Italy

“…The selection hypothesis argues that many migrants' behaviour may indeed not change at all -rather, people who choose to migrate in the fi rst place are a self-selected group, whose fertility preferences are different -usually lower -than than the general average in their country of origin (Kulu 2005). The maintenance of country of origin fertility behaviors after migration has been interpreted in the logic of the socialisation hypothesis, which similarly builds on the premise that the fertility behaviour of migrants primarily refl ects the fertility preferences dominant in their childhood environment (Kulu 2005;Baykara-Krumme/Milewski 2017). Nevertheless, it is widely acknowledged that the timing and the number of births are not only shaped by norms and preferences, but also refl ect constraints and inequalities, such as precarious economic conditions, diffi culties in reconciling family life and demanding jobs, the unavailability of a suitable partner, poor health, infertility, or unplanned pregnancies (Martin 2004;Philipov/Bernardi 2011;Sedgh et al 2014;Finer/Zolna 2016).…”

Partner Choice and the Transition to Parenthood for Second-Generation Women of Turkish and Moroccan Origin in Belgium

“…Although we expected the highest first-birth rates for the unions with a first-generation partner (Hypothesis 2), this was not supported by our empirical analyses. The fact that we did not find differences by generation of the partner can first of all be explained by the fact that fertility norms as well as behaviour have also changed in Turkey and Morocco and that both countries experienced substantial fertility decline (e.g., Baykara-Krumme & Milewski, 2017;Bongaarts, 2008;Rashad, 2000). This may result in no big differences between the norms of first-and second-generation partners.…”