Persisting Differences or Adaptation to German Fertility Patterns? First and Second Birth Behavior of the 1.5 and Second Generation Turkish Migrants in Germany

In this study, we use data of the German Mikrozensus to explore first and second birth behavior of migrants’ descendants. Whereas prior waves of the Mikrozensus only included respondents’ citizenship, in the survey years 2005 and 2009 also parental citizenship has been surveyed. This allows us to identify respondents’ migrant backgrounds, even if they have German citizenship. We distinguish those who migrated as children (1.5 generation) from those who were born to Turkish parents in Germany (second generation migrants). We compare both migrant generations to German non-migrants. Using discrete-time hazard models, our results show that 1.5 generation migrants have the highest probability of having a first and second birth, while German non-migrants have the lowest birth probabilities. The second generation lies in-between. This pattern also persists after taking the educational attainment of respondents into consideration. However, there seems to be an adaptation of highly educated second generation Turkish migrants to non-migrant Germans: we find no significant differences in the probability of having a first birth in the two groups. For second births, we do not find this pattern which might be related to the young age structure in the sample of second generation migrants.