The Influence of Employment Abroad on Childbearing Behaviour of Return Migrants

Abstract

Th e purpose of the article is to investigate the impact of temporary employment abroad on the reproductive activity of return migrants in Ukraine. Th e novelty of the study lies in establishing the quantitative eff ect of international migration experience on the reproductive behavior of return migrants, determining the impact of the presence and number of siblings on respondents’ childbearing activity. Th e main methods used are comparison, grouping and indicators standardization. Th e baseline data and calculations presented in this publication are grounded on the results of a sample study carried out within the TEMPER project, which has surveyed 736 persons with an experience of employment in Italy or Poland and 509 respondents who have never worked outside of Ukraine. It is found that among return migrants one person has an average of 1.09 children, while among non-migrants the corresponding fi gure is 1.26. To avoid the impact of diff erences in gender and age structure between the two categories of respondents age-specifi c coeffi cients of the average number of children per person are calculated in the article and the procedure of their standardization is applied. Th e standardized average number of children per one woman of reproductive age from the group of return migrants is 1.10, which is only 0.01 less than the value of the actual indicator. For women of the same age who had never worked abroad, the fi gure is 1.41. If women of childbearing age with migration experience were to have on average the same number of children as women from non-migratory group have, the total number of child -ren of this category of persons would be 25 % higher than the actual one. Th e overall impact of the educational levels of both parents on the average number of children is revealed: returnees with higher education who have a partner with the same educational level have an average 1.21 children; in couples where one partner has higher education and the other secondary, the corresponding fi gure was 1.3; in cases where both spouses have diplomas of secondary level, the analyzed fi gure is 1.62 (for non-migrants, the coeffi cients were 1.28; 1.57 and 1.76 respectively).