Immigrant fertility in Sweden, 2000-2011: A descriptive note

Abstract

BACKGROUNDModern Scandinavian population registers provide excellent data sources that allow a user to quickly gain an impression of the level of fertility and its structure across subpopulations. This may also allow the analyst to check a feature of the much-cited disruption hypothesis, at least in part. OBJECTIVEThe purpose of this note is to exploit this potential to give an overview of the structure of recent total fertility after immigration to Sweden from various groups of sending countries, separately for males and females. In the process we demonstrate to what extent the post-migration fertility compensation which is part of the fertility disruption hypothesis is fulfilled in our study population. Due to the nature of our data we have refrained from studying fertility before migration. METHODBased on data from a combination of two Swedish administrative registers (the Historic Population Register and the Multi-Generation Register) that cover both men and women in the entire population for the years 2000-2011, we compute and plot TFR-like age-cumulated fertility levels, specific for years since immigration, for six groups of sending countries, separately for men and women. RESULTSWe find that the post-migration fertility compensation specified as part of the fertility disruption hypothesis is visibly confirmed in our Swedish study population for female European immigrants from non-EU countries and for female immigrants from nonEuropean countries with a low or medium UN Human Development Index, but not so for other female immigrants, i.e. not for those who come from a Nordic country or from

The fertility of recent migrants to England and Wales

“…These patterns are likely to reflect reasons for migration that differ systematically by age and country of birth (Robards and Berrington 2015;Berkeley, Khan, and Ambikaipaker 2006). Similar to previous findings from France (Toulemon 2004), Sweden (Persson and Hoem 2014), Norway (Østby 2002), and Italy (Mussino and Strozza 2012), high fertility was identified in years immediately after migration for migrants from low-income countries of birth -in this case Pakistan and Bangladesh. By contrast, women moving from countries of birth where education and work-related migration reasons are key (e.g., India, Poland) appear to delay childbearing until some years after migration.…”

A decade of life-course research on fertility of immigrants and their descendants in Europe

“…Similar patterns were also reported by Mussino et al (2015) in their study on fertility of immigrants in the Lombardy region of Italy. A study by Persson and Hoem (2014) on Sweden is another good example demonstrating significant fertility differences between marriage-related migrants and other migrants. Fertility levels were significantly elevated after migration for immigrants from low-income non-European countries, suggesting that family formation was the main reason for their migration.…”

Depressed fertility among descendants of immigrants in Sweden

“…This also holds true for Sweden (e.g., Scott 2005, 2007;Persson and Hoem 2014). The focus is often on immigrants from high-fertility countries to those with lower fertility, with research focusing on the interdependencies of migration and childbearing trajectories (Kulu and Milewski 2007) and the fertility adaptation of migrants in different settings in Europe and North America (e.g., Kahn 1988;Ford 1990;Andersson 2004;Kulu 2005).…”