Mar 5, 2012

Immigrants, fertility, and citizenship

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, following the introduction of the new German nationality law 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 outcomes for the children affected by the reform.
That is from the new paper "Citizenship, Fertility and Parental Investment" by Avitabile, Clots-Figueras, and Masella (February 2012). 
Regarding fertility patterns, Adsera and Ferrer (March 2011), find for Canada that those migrating in their late teens have the highest fertility rates when compared to natives. "College graduates arriving to Canada anytime before adulthood behave as their native peers." In another paper Adsera et al. (2011), find that fertility patterns among women child-immigrats are similar to women in the host country.  
I still have some questions:
1) How does the fertility rate among immigrants compare to natives?
2) How does fertility rates among second-generation immigrants compare to first-generations?

HT: Clarence Nkengne Tsimpo

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