Immigrants' children fertility intentions in Italy

The aim of this paper is to describe the attitudes toward fertility of immigrants’ children living in Italy and to measure the influence of individual and community determinants on their fertility preferences (FP). Data come from ITAGEN2, a quantitative survey performed in the s.y. 2005/06 targeted on Middle Schools (aged 11-14), statistically representative of 48 Italian provinces (above 103) for schools with >10% of foreign pupils (Centre-North) and >3% (South). About 20 thousand self-filled questionnaires have been collected (10,000 foreigners and 10,000 Italians). More than 200 schools are involved. The main results are the followings. Immigrants’ children want less children than Italians’ children (the opposite result comparing to similar survey in the Netherlands and Canada). The assimilation process works also for FP, as the FP of 2° generation are very similar to the FP of native Italians. Apart from the age of immigration, FP are influenced by the following individual characteristics: gender (– females), working status of the mother (– working mother), number of siblings (+), orientation toward career (–), knowledge of Italian language (+), ethnic tradition (+). At a community level, FP are influenced mainly by the realized fertility in school-friend’s family than the desired fertility in the country of origin.