IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp5552.html

Age at Migration, Language and Fertility Patterns among Migrants to Canada

Author

Listed:
  • Adsera, Alicia

    (Princeton University)

  • Ferrer, Ana

    (University of Waterloo)

Abstract

This paper explores the fertility decisions of Canadian immigrants using a 20 percent sample of the Canadian Census of Population for the years 1991 through 2006. We focus on those individuals that migrated as children and on their age at arrival to assess their process of assimilation in terms of fertility. Our analysis does not show any sharp discontinuity in fertility by age at migration as sometimes observed on education or labor market outcomes. Instead, there is an inverted U shape relationship between age of migration and immigrant fertility, with those migrating in their late teens having the highest fertility rates when compared to natives. This pattern appears among migrants from all origins – although their fertility levels differ. Results suggests that language acquisition is not a key mechanism through which age at immigration affects fertility – fertility behavior of immigrants with an official mother tongue also differs from that of natives. Rather fertility assimilation seems to be associated with education decisions. College graduates arriving to Canada anytime before adulthood behave as their native peers.

Suggested Citation

  • Adsera, Alicia & Ferrer, Ana, 2011. "Age at Migration, Language and Fertility Patterns among Migrants to Canada," IZA Discussion Papers 5552, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5552
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp5552.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian Dustmann & Francesca Fabbri, 2003. "Language proficiency and labour market performance of immigrants in the UK," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(489), pages 695-717, July.
    2. Dustmann, Christian, 1994. "Speaking Fluency, Writing Fluency and Earnings of Migrants," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 7(2), pages 133-156.
    3. Picot, Garnett & Sweetman, Arthur, 2005. "The Deteriorating Economic Welfare of Immigrants and Possible Causes: Update 2005," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 2005262e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    4. Christian Dustmann & Arthur Van Soest, 2002. "Language and the Earnings of Immigrants," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 55(3), pages 473-492, April.
    5. Guinnane, Timothy W. & Moehling, Carolyn M. & Grada, Cormac O, 2002. "The Fertility of the Irish in America in 1910," Center Discussion Papers 28386, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stichnoth, Holger & Yeter, Mustafa, 2013. "Cultural influences on the fertility behaviour of first- and second-generation immigrants in Germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-023, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    2. Lotta Persson & Jan M. Hoem, 2014. "Immigrant fertility in Sweden, 2000-2011: A descriptive note," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 30(30), pages 887-898.
    3. Ciro Avitabile & Irma Clots-Figueras & Paolo Masella, 2014. "Citizenship, Fertility, and Parental Investments," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 35-65, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alicia Adserà & Aditi Bhowmick, 2022. "English Proficiency, Gender and the Occupations of Childhood Immigrants in the US," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 321-344, December.
    2. Antonio Di Paolo & Aysit Tansel, 2015. "Returns to Foreign Language Skills in a Developing Country: The Case of Turkey," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(4), pages 407-421, April.
    3. Yao, Yuxin & van Ours, Jan C., 2015. "Language skills and labor market performance of immigrants in the Netherlands," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 76-85.
    4. Jacek Liwiński, 2019. "The wage premium from foreign language skills," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 46(4), pages 691-711, November.
    5. Zheng, Yeqiu & Gu, Yan & Backus, Albert & van Soest, Arthur, 2023. "The value of host-country language: The effect of Dutch language proficiency on immigrants’ income, savings and financial wealth in the Netherlands," OSF Preprints qnfuv, Center for Open Science.
    6. Tam, King Wa & Page, Lionel, 2016. "Effects of language proficiency on labour, social and health outcomes of immigrants in Australia," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 66-78.
    7. Aldashev, Alisher & Gernandt, Johannes & Thomsen, Stephan L., 2009. "Language usage, participation, employment and earnings: Evidence for foreigners in West Germany with multiple sources of selection," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 330-341, June.
    8. Yao, Yuxin, 2017. "Essays on economics of language and family economics," Other publications TiSEM 0093bc8e-e869-4f87-8ff8-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Julia Lang, 2022. "Employment effects of language training for unemployed immigrants," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(2), pages 719-754, April.
    10. Lang, Julia, 2018. "Employment effects of language training for unemployed immigrants," IAB-Discussion Paper 201821, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    11. Mary Antonia Silles, 2018. "The Effects of Language Skills on the Economic Assimilation of Female Immigrants in the United States," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 86(6), pages 789-815, December.
    12. Dustmann, Christian & Glitz, Albrecht, 2011. "Migration and Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 327-439, Elsevier.
    13. Lang Kevin & Siniver Erez, 2009. "The Return to English in a Non-English Speaking Country: Russian Immigrants and Native Israelis in Israel," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-30, November.
    14. Foged, Mette & van der Werf, Cynthia, 2023. "Access to language training and the local integration of refugees," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    15. Yao, Y. & van Ours, J.C., 2015. "Language Skills and Labor Market Performance of Immigrants in the Netherlands," Discussion Paper 2015-010, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    16. Alexander M. Danzer & Firat Yaman, 2010. "Ethnic Concentration and Language Fluency of Immigrants in Germany," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 277, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    17. Andrew Henley & Rhian Eleri Jones, 2005. "Earnings And Linguistic Proficiency In A Bilingual Economy," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 73(3), pages 300-320, June.
    18. De Paola, Maria & Brunello, Giorgio, 2016. "Education as a Tool for the Economic Integration of Migrants," IZA Discussion Papers 9836, IZA Network @ LISER.
    19. Euwals, Rob & Dagevos, Jaco & Gijsberts, Mérove & Roodenburg, Hans, 2007. "The Labour Market Position of Turkish Immigrants in Germany and the Netherlands: Reason for Migration, Naturalisation and Language Proficiency," IZA Discussion Papers 2683, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Alfonso Miranda & Yu Zhu, 2013. "The Causal Effect of Deficiency at English on Female Immigrants’ Labour Market Outcomes in the UK," Studies in Economics 1301, School of Economics, University of Kent.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5552. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.