Impact of a Precarious Employment Situation on Short-term Fertility Intentions: A Comparative Study of Migrants and Natives in Sweden

Abstract: Over the past decades, the world has witnessed significant social and demographic changes, including a declining fertility rate in Europe, a decrease in job security and flexibilisation of the labour market, and an increasing flow of migrants to the Global North. Especially migrants have been affected by precarious work arrangements. However, little research has been conducted on the specific impact of employment uncertainty on migrant fertility intentions. Using binary logistic regression models, this study looks at the effect of both objective and subjective indicators of a precarious employment situation on short-term fertility intentions using the Swedish GGS-II survey data. The analysis includes both migrants and Swedish-born individuals and covers men and women separately, which is rare in previous research that has focused chiefly on women only. The findings suggest that the impact of unemployment on fertility intentions differs between migrant and Swedish-born women and men. Specifically, being an unemployed migrant, compared to being unemployed and Swedish-born appears to increase the likelihood of expressing a positive fertility intention. The time since arrival for female migrants does not moderate the effect of employment status. However, for female migrants in education who have resided in Sweden for at least five years, the probability of stating a positive fertility intention is substantially reduced compared to newly arrived migrant women. Moreover, the probability of expressing a positive fertility intention increases when a migrant woman perceives job loss as likely in the near future relative to Swedish-born women with similar job security perceptions. Regarding men, the results are less conclusive, with no substantial differences observed in the impact of the likelihood of job loss on fertility intentions between migrant and Swedish-born men. The study suggests that despite the importance of the institutional setting for fertility decision-making, other mechanisms are at play, too: migrants and Swedish-born individuals seem to respond differently to labour market uncertainties and especially unemployment.