Abstract
This study investigates partnership changes and childbearing among immigrant women and men and their descendants born in the UK, France and Germany. While there is a growing literature on immigrant families in Europe, little (if any) research has examined their fertility and partnership histories in tandem. We focus on two critical stages of individuals’ family life course: pathways to family formation (e.g., transitions from singlehood to cohabitation, marriage or a birth outside of a union), and the evolution of individuals’ family lives once they are in a union (e.g., having a(nother) child or experiencing union dissolution). We apply a series of competing-risks Poisson regression models to combined longitudinal data from the three countries. Our analysis shows significant diversity in partnership trajectories among immigrants and their descendants in Europe that in many cases vary more by migration origin than destination. Immigrants from other European countries and their descendants cohabit prior to marriage and their fertility levels in unions are often similar to those of ancestral natives. In contrast, South Asians in the UK and the Turkish population in France and Germany exhibit marriage-centred family behaviour with low separation levels and elevated third birth rates. Individuals of sub-Saharan African or the Caribbean origin display higher levels of non marital family transitions. The differences between migrant groups persist when adjusting for educational level and number of siblings. Further, the analyses show that migration background is particularly associated with partnership patterns, whereas the country context in destination does influence patterns in childbearing behaviour. This suggests that cultural-normative as well as structural factors are at play in shaping family trajectories of immigrants and their descendants. We predict some patterns to persist across future migrant generations (e.g., preference for marriage vs cohabitation), whereas others are likely to vanish (e.g., large families).