The Interrelationship Between Fertility and Employment Among Women with Migrant Family Backgrounds

Abstract Fertility, Employment, Descendants of immigrants, United Kingdom Women’s childbearing behaviour is closely linked to their labour-market participation, yet research that treats these processes as interdependent rarely examines women with migrant family backgrounds. Using twelve waves of the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2009–2021), this study employs a multiprocess model to jointly estimate the probabilities of childbirth and employment transitions while accounting for unobserved propensities. We focus on 1.5 generation (migrated before age 16) and second-generation women (UK-born with at least one foreign-born parent), comparing them with women born in the UK to UK-born parents. Results show a partially negative correlation between fertility and paid work, and ignoring this leads to overestimating employment’s negative impact on fertility. Findings by parity show that employed women are more likely to have a first birth, while non-employed women are more likely to have second and third births. This pattern varies across migrant family backgrounds: employment status makes little difference for first births among Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Caribbean women, reflecting a robust cultural orientation toward family formation within these groups. Generational differences also emerge. Pakistani and Bangladeshi 1.5 generation have higher first-birth rates than their second-generation counterparts, pointing to the role of early socialisation. All 1.5 generation women are less likely to enter employment than the second generation, suggesting stronger barriers for the foreign-born. These results highlight diverse work-family pathways shaped by subcultures and constraints, with implications for UK family and labour-market policy.