First child of immigrant workers and their descendants in West Germany: interrelation of events, disruption, or adaptation?

This paper investigates the impact of immigration on the transition to motherhood among women from Turkey, Italy, Spain, Greece, and the former Yugoslavia in West Germany. We apply a hazard regression analysis to data of the German Socio-Economic Panel study. We distinguish between the first and second immigrant generation. The results show that the transition rates to a first birth of first-generation immigrants are elevated shortly after they move country. We trace the elevated birth risks shortly following the immigration back to an interrelation of events – these are migration, marriage, and first birth. We do not find evidence of a fertility-disruption effect after immigration. Our analysis indicates that second-generation immigrants are more adapted to the lower fertility levels of West Germans than their mothers’ generation.