Understanding third and fourth births in Britain: What role do increased immigration and multiple partnerships play?
Understanding third and fourth births in Britain: What role do increased immigration and multiple partnerships play?
The proportion of UK families with three or more children is high in European perspective. Commentators often assume that high rates of progression to third, fourth and higher order births result from the higher fertility of women who migrated to the UK from regions of the world where large families are common. Less attention has focused on the role of serial partnering where repartnered couples cement their commitment with a ‘shared child’. This paper provides new empirical evidence as to the relative importance of increased international migration and increased experience of multiple partnerships in fostering
higher order births among British women now aged 45+ who were born 1940-1969. We conclude that migration from high fertility regions, and the experience of multiple partnerships are both associated with progression to third and fourth birth. However, the likelihood of going on to have a third or fourth birth has remained similar across these birth cohorts for women who were born in the UK (to UK-born parents), and those who have only been married once, suggesting that additional factors encourage large families in the UK.
Completed family size, Parity progression, Third birth, Fourth birth, Multi-partner fertility, Fertility of immigrants
ESRC Centre for Population Change
Berrington, Ann
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Stone, Juliet
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Mcgowan, Teresa
4524e894-04de-4822-8508-f4b966e12ae2
10 March 2017
Berrington, Ann
bd0fc093-310d-4236-8126-ca0c7eb9ddde
Stone, Juliet
e90cfda9-64e9-4619-8a16-911312a0a965
Mcgowan, Teresa
4524e894-04de-4822-8508-f4b966e12ae2
Berrington, Ann and Stone, Juliet
,
Mcgowan, Teresa
(ed.)
(2017)
Understanding third and fourth births in Britain: What role do increased immigration and multiple partnerships play?
(CPC working papers, 83)
Southampton.
ESRC Centre for Population Change
32pp.
Record type:
Monograph
(Working Paper)
Abstract
The proportion of UK families with three or more children is high in European perspective. Commentators often assume that high rates of progression to third, fourth and higher order births result from the higher fertility of women who migrated to the UK from regions of the world where large families are common. Less attention has focused on the role of serial partnering where repartnered couples cement their commitment with a ‘shared child’. This paper provides new empirical evidence as to the relative importance of increased international migration and increased experience of multiple partnerships in fostering
higher order births among British women now aged 45+ who were born 1940-1969. We conclude that migration from high fertility regions, and the experience of multiple partnerships are both associated with progression to third and fourth birth. However, the likelihood of going on to have a third or fourth birth has remained similar across these birth cohorts for women who were born in the UK (to UK-born parents), and those who have only been married once, suggesting that additional factors encourage large families in the UK.
Text
CPC_WP83_Understanding_Third_and_Fourth_Births
More information
Published date: 10 March 2017
Keywords:
Completed family size, Parity progression, Third birth, Fourth birth, Multi-partner fertility, Fertility of immigrants
Organisations:
Social Statistics & Demography, Centre for Population Change
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 407831
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/407831
PURE UUID: 2d65d2aa-e2f0-409c-bdea-e9644bd3635d
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Date deposited: 26 Apr 2017 01:15
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 03:45
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Contributors
Author:
Juliet Stone
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