Timing Matters: Family Formation, Migration, and the Labor Market Outcomes of Immigrant Women

Ben Wilson , Stockholm University
Alice Goisis, UCL
Alicia Adsera, Princeton University

Immigrant women typically represent a similar share of the population as immigrant men, and yet their labor market outcomes are studied far less often. This gap also reflects the fact that research on the labor market outcomes of women rarely considers immigrants. Here we address this gap by unifying disparate strands of research to develop a conceptual framework that draws on theories of migration, immigrant fertility, motherhood earnings inequalities, and diverging destinies. We use this framework to theorize interactions between the timing of family formation, the timing of migration, and the development of labor market inequalities among immigrant women. We test the explanatory power of this framework using an empirical case study of Sweden, which enables us to demonstrate the complex interplay of life events and their role in determining labor market outcomes. We use longitudinal data on the entire foreign-born population born between 1975 and 1980 who arrived in Sweden as adults aged 16-39. Female immigrants who arrive at earlier ages have higher earnings at age 40, but family formation before migration is equally important for explaining their earnings. We not only show that the timing of fertility and migration are crucial for the labor market outcomes of immigrant women, but also how they interact with migration history and circumstances on arrival to determine these outcomes. Finally, we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of our conceptual framework, and make a series of recommendations for future research on the socio-demographic lives of immigrant women.

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 Presented in Session 19. The Labor-Market Outcomes of Migrant Populations