SRRD_2019_23.pdf (1.1 MB)
Visualising immigrant fertility: Profiles of childbearing and their implications for migration research
Abstract: The literature on immigrant fertility
uses many different measures of fertility, such as the period total fertility
rate, cohort completed fertility or measures of parity transitions. Each
measure has strengths and limitations, and no single measure captures every
aspect of the complex phenomenon of immigrant childbearing. Building upon
recent research, this paper introduces a novel visual measure that describes
life course profiles of immigrant childbearing in a multifaceted way. It
develops the well-known cohort fertility curve – showing the average number of
children ever born over the life course – and adds lines for immigrant women
arriving at different ages, using their average number of children ever born on
arrival as a starting point. These immigrant fertility profiles can illustrate
a number of important aspects of childbearing simultaneously, including
children born before arrival, fertility after arrival, and completed fertility
at the end of childbearing. In addition to showing numbers of children born
(i.e. fertility quantum), the slopes of each profile indicate the tempo of
fertility and how this changes by age and duration of residence. The fertility
profiles of different immigrant groups can be plotted in the same graph, and
can be compared and contrasted with non-immigrant groups – at origin as well as
destination – through the augmentation of each visualisation. Using Nordic
register data, we provide a range of examples that illustrate how these
fertility profiles can be used to illuminate our knowledge of immigrant
childbearing and to investigate various hypotheses of migrant fertility.