TY - JOUR

T1 - Number of siblings and educational choices of immigrant children

T2 - evidence from first- and second-generation immigrants

AU - Meurs, Dominique

AU - Puhani, Patrick A.

AU - Von Haaren-Giebel, Friederike

N1 - Funding Information: This project was partly supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) under the joint project “Integration of First and Second Generation Immigrants in France and Germany”. We thank the editor and anonymous referees and seminar participants at the German Economic Association (“Verein für Socialpolitik”) and at “Niedersächsischer Workshop in Applied Economics” for helpful comments. All remaining errors are our own.

PY - 2017/12/1

Y1 - 2017/12/1

N2 - We document the educational integration of immigrant children in France and Germany with a focus on the link between family size and educational decisions and distinguishing particularly between first- and second-generation immigrants and between source country groups. First, for immigrant adolescents, we show family-size adjusted convergence to almost native levels of higher education track attendance from the first to the second generation of immigrants. Second, we find that reduced fertility is associated with higher educational outcomes for immigrant children, possibly through a quantity–quality trade-off. Third, we show that between one-third and the complete difference in family-size adjusted educational outcomes between immigrants from different source countries or immigrant generations can be explained by parental background. This latter holds true for various immigrant groups in both France and Germany, two major European economies with distinct immigration histories.

AB - We document the educational integration of immigrant children in France and Germany with a focus on the link between family size and educational decisions and distinguishing particularly between first- and second-generation immigrants and between source country groups. First, for immigrant adolescents, we show family-size adjusted convergence to almost native levels of higher education track attendance from the first to the second generation of immigrants. Second, we find that reduced fertility is associated with higher educational outcomes for immigrant children, possibly through a quantity–quality trade-off. Third, we show that between one-third and the complete difference in family-size adjusted educational outcomes between immigrants from different source countries or immigrant generations can be explained by parental background. This latter holds true for various immigrant groups in both France and Germany, two major European economies with distinct immigration histories.

KW - Decomposition

KW - Integration

KW - Migration

KW - Quantity–quality trade-off

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84955278473&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s11150-015-9320-y

DO - 10.1007/s11150-015-9320-y

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84955278473

VL - 15

SP - 1137

EP - 1158

JO - Review of Economics of the Household

JF - Review of Economics of the Household

SN - 1569-5239

IS - 4

ER -