Comments on: Why Is It That Immigrants Have So Many Children?

By: laurance Ottley

laurance Ottley — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 19:41:02 +0000

Of course the birth rate is higher in Spain: warm breezes, good wine, feista, spending part of the afternoon in bed. It is a sexy country! But now it is the immigrants having all the fun while the natives obsess over their wealth it seems.
In the UK, succeeding generations of Indians and Pakistani immigrants are having smaller families, but then, over here, it is too cold to drop yer’ trousers most of the time.

By: Valentin1979

Valentin1979 — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 15:14:27 +0000

I got another idea.

Maybe they have more children also because they recreate a proximity family ; because their family is still in the original country.

So the more children they have, and the less alone they feel.

It’s not the main reason but maybe one of the valuable reasons.

By: Massimo Moruzzi

Massimo Moruzzi — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 15:35:06 +0000

Thanks for your very interesting perspective, Martin! I do, however, think that you may be overlooking three crucial elements:
-age (immigrants tend to be young)
-relative well-being in their new country (they may seem poor to us, but they’re much better off than they would have been had they not left home)
-more faith in our countries than we have (even as many of us see our societies less open to social mobility and newcomers than they were decades ago, it still looks very rosy to people accustomed to very closed societies)

P.S.
do you know how small the font is for those commenting with Firefox? Like font-8 (…)

By: LS

LS — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 05:38:35 +0000

Muy bonito análisis, Martín. Gracias.

Esta es una de las partes que más me gustó:

“… My explanation of why immigrants have more kids is that they represent the part of the population that in any country would have more kids, namely the optimists, the ones who think that their children will lead a better life than themselves, the ones who are used to sacrifices in life and who do not see the sacrifice of child raising as a big burden. …”

By: Homo Viator

Homo Viator — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 01:43:19 +0000

Interesting argument you got there. Linking it to my last blog entry about the EU East expansion I would conclude that the EU must not only open its borders wider for immigration, but integrating Turkey into the EU may be saving Germany´s health care system and thus ensuring economic stability in the long run. Let me also say that Kreuzberg is Berlin’s most friendly, entrepreneurial and now even trendiest area. Kreuzberg is the area of choice of Turkish immigrants coming to Berlin; Berlin being the world’s third biggest Turkish city, after Instanbul and Ankara. When will right wing populists begin to understand that immigration is a key component of a globalized new world order and protection against it is like protecting inefficient industries by imposing tariffs and duties: Ineffective! Even if increased immigration may in a worst case scenario (although England and Spain have proved us wrong) lead to raised unemployment rates in the short term, this is far offset by its benefits to the healthcare system in the long run. This just talking financial here, not to mention how cultural diversity may instigate socio-economic developments in other areas.
By the way: It was great meeting you at the DLD conference. I am Nina´s friend Niko and finally off the crutches. Saludos!

By: euronerd

euronerd — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 17:27:17 +0000

cultural background, unemployment rates, differences in wealth, access to preservatives, access to health care, language barriers, social isolation, discrimination.
To name a view other reasons.

By: Alan Bell

Alan Bell — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 12:53:23 +0000

there is also the average age of immigrants to consider. I suspect it is mainly people in their 20s and 30s who don’t already have children in schools etc. so they are more free to emigrate. This doesn’t affect the total number of children per family but will mean that the number of immigrant children will seem high compared to the increase in the adult population.

By: andi

andi — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 22:12:14 +0000

I have read somewhere that immigrants that come to Sweden tend to have fewer children than the average person in the country they left. Would be interesting to see statistics.
But then there probably are those that would say that the ones that come to Sweden are the lazy ones that want to live off the welfare system. I doubt that is true though, I think I would prefer life in a villa miseria than living off benefits in a Swedish suburb.

By: Barbara Anderson

Barbara Anderson — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 16:21:53 +0000

Martín: me gustó mucho este análisis. Me llamo Barbara Anderson, soy editora de la revista de negocios más importante de México (Expansión) y desde hace 5 años dejé mi Cordoba natal en la Argentina para buscar ‘emprender’ nuevos desafíos.
Tenemos una sección de opinión con columnistas muy interesantes (como Thomas Friedman o Jack Welch) y me gustaría mucho poder reproducir ésta en la que hablas de la inmigración, sin dudas un tema muy candente en Mexico, en nuestra revista.

Un saludo

Barbara
(mi novio Andres llevó un par de foneras a Cba. en nuestro viaje de las navidades, gracias a las gestiones del buen amigo Eduardo Arcos)

By: Olivier Bassil

Olivier Bassil — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 10:19:05 +0000

Grent article. This is very true, and unthought of, as far as I know.
Immigrants are the most respectable human beings for that matter. They are pro-active, entrepreunarial people who are not afraid of undertaking their life projects across boundaries and borders.