Partnership and Fertility Trajectories of Immigrant Women Across the Migration Process to Spain: A Comparison by Country of Origin

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although many studies examine family patterns among immigrants and how these differ from those in the native population, a migration‐focused perspective investigating how partnerships and childbearing trajectories intersect throughout the migration process remains scarce. Applying multichannel sequence analysis to retrospective data from the 2018 Spanish Fertility Survey, this study simultaneously analysed changes in women's partnerships and fertility behaviour around the time of migration and explored how these patterns differed by migrant origin. The pattern of family‐related migration revealed a substantial increase in cohabitation and first births shortly after migration. Cluster analysis identified five typical family trajectories among immigrant women. Multinomial logistic regression models were then used to examine how these trajectories were associated with immigrant origins. Contrary to expectations, the results did not show significant differences in these family trajectories by country of origin, except for the Early Marriage and Fertility Transitions and Single Motherhood pathways . These findings provide comprehensive insights into the interdependencies among family life domains during the migration process.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Population Space and Place, 2026 · DOI ↗