Regularization of Immigrants and Fertility in Italy

In this paper, we examined whether the regularization law approved in Italy in 2002 led to changes in the fertility of immigrant women. We used the Birth Sample Survey, published by the Italian Institute of Statistics, to show that the Italian regularization increased the probability of having the first child by approximately 6 percentage points, whereas point estimates of the probability of having additional children beyond the first were negative, but not significant. By exploring alternative specifications, focusing on individuals eligible to receive the status of regular immigrant through employment, we find evidence of a stronger effect with respect to our baseline results. Robustness analyses confirmed our main findings.