Country-of-destination patterns vary by gender: completed fertility among first-generation migrants in Europe

Abstract Previous research on migrant fertility has focused mainly on the total fertility rate (TFR) at the macro level or on specific birth transitions of migrant women or their descendants at the individual level. Few studies at the micro level examine completed fertility among migrants across European countries, and few compare fertility patterns of migrant men with those of migrant women. Building on theoretical considerations on migrant fertility, i.e., adaptation, disruption, selection hypotheses, and the comparative integration context theory, this study investigates first-generation migrants’ number of children ever born across European countries of destination and the underlying gender differences. We analyze data from the Generations and Gender Survey Round II (2020–2022) of two German-speaking countries (Germany and Austria) and three Nordic countries (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden). The first dependent variable is the number of children, for which Poisson regression models are estimated. The second dependent variable is childlessness, for which linear probability models are estimated. All models are estimated separately for migrants and natives. The results support the hypotheses on the influence of the comparative integration context and on adaptation processes, but reveal major gender differences: completed fertility patterns among migrant women resemble those of natives, but this is not the case for migrant men. Migrant women in the Nordic countries have more children than their counterparts in Germany, while the results for migrant men remain inconclusive. Rates of childlessness among migrant men in the Nordic countries surpass those of both native men and migrant women, indicating that migration disrupts family formation more for men than women. This disruption seems to occur as early as the union formation stage, i.e., migrant men in the Nordic countries are at greatest risk of remaining single among the groups observed.