The partnership, fertility, and employment trajectories of immigrants in the United Kingdom: An intersectional life course approach using three-channel sequence analysis
BACKGROUND: Although immigrants’ employment, partnership, and childbearing are intertwined, most previous longitudinal studies have focused on only one of these life domains. OBJECTIVE: We investigate gendered patterns of the co-evolution of the partnership, fertility, and employment trajectories of...
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Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
2025-08-01
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| Online Access: | https://www.demographic-research.org/articles/volume/53/10 |
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| author | Julia Mikolai Hill Kulu |
| author_facet | Julia Mikolai Hill Kulu |
| author_sort | Julia Mikolai |
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| description | BACKGROUND: Although immigrants’ employment, partnership, and childbearing are intertwined, most previous longitudinal studies have focused on only one of these life domains. OBJECTIVE: We investigate gendered patterns of the co-evolution of the partnership, fertility, and employment trajectories of immigrants from different origin countries. METHODS: We use the UK Household Longitudinal Study and multi-channel sequence analysis to establish types of joint trajectories of partnership, fertility, and employment among immigrants. Applying multinomial logistic regression, we determine the characteristics of immigrants who experience each trajectory type. We conduct the analyses both together and separately for women and men. RESULTS: We find three types of trajectories. Immigrants in the ‘single, childless, students’ cluster arrive as and remain single and childless and are either in education or part-time employment. The second group of immigrants (‘partnered, childless, full-time employed’) arrive as single and childless but later become partnered and parents. They are in full-time employment. The third group is family migrants: they arrive as married, some have children at the time of arrival while others become parents soon after, and they are either employed or inactive. We found large differences between migrant men and women: While most men are in education or full-time employment, women stay inactive, especially family migrants. CONTRIBUTION: Taking an intersectional life course approach, we have shown that family and employment are mutually supportive life domains among immigrant men, whereas among immigrant women they are competing and often incompatible. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-c8dea2148b094d5887f9e9c9c8c8c10c |
| institution | Kabale University |
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| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-08-01 |
| publisher | Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research |
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| series | Demographic Research |
| spelling | doaj-art-c8dea2148b094d5887f9e9c9c8c8c10c2025-08-26T00:00:44ZengMax Planck Institute for Demographic ResearchDemographic Research1435-98712025-08-01531026130610.4054/DemRes.2025.53.106413The partnership, fertility, and employment trajectories of immigrants in the United Kingdom: An intersectional life course approach using three-channel sequence analysisJulia Mikolai0Hill Kulu1University of St AndrewsUniversity of St AndrewsBACKGROUND: Although immigrants’ employment, partnership, and childbearing are intertwined, most previous longitudinal studies have focused on only one of these life domains. OBJECTIVE: We investigate gendered patterns of the co-evolution of the partnership, fertility, and employment trajectories of immigrants from different origin countries. METHODS: We use the UK Household Longitudinal Study and multi-channel sequence analysis to establish types of joint trajectories of partnership, fertility, and employment among immigrants. Applying multinomial logistic regression, we determine the characteristics of immigrants who experience each trajectory type. We conduct the analyses both together and separately for women and men. RESULTS: We find three types of trajectories. Immigrants in the ‘single, childless, students’ cluster arrive as and remain single and childless and are either in education or part-time employment. The second group of immigrants (‘partnered, childless, full-time employed’) arrive as single and childless but later become partnered and parents. They are in full-time employment. The third group is family migrants: they arrive as married, some have children at the time of arrival while others become parents soon after, and they are either employed or inactive. We found large differences between migrant men and women: While most men are in education or full-time employment, women stay inactive, especially family migrants. CONTRIBUTION: Taking an intersectional life course approach, we have shown that family and employment are mutually supportive life domains among immigrant men, whereas among immigrant women they are competing and often incompatible. https://www.demographic-research.org/articles/volume/53/10employmentfertilityimmigrantsmulti-channel sequence analysispartnershipUnited Kingdom |
| spellingShingle | Julia Mikolai Hill Kulu The partnership, fertility, and employment trajectories of immigrants in the United Kingdom: An intersectional life course approach using three-channel sequence analysis Demographic Research employment fertility immigrants multi-channel sequence analysis partnership United Kingdom |
| title | The partnership, fertility, and employment trajectories of immigrants in the United Kingdom: An intersectional life course approach using three-channel sequence analysis |
| title_full | The partnership, fertility, and employment trajectories of immigrants in the United Kingdom: An intersectional life course approach using three-channel sequence analysis |
| title_fullStr | The partnership, fertility, and employment trajectories of immigrants in the United Kingdom: An intersectional life course approach using three-channel sequence analysis |
| title_full_unstemmed | The partnership, fertility, and employment trajectories of immigrants in the United Kingdom: An intersectional life course approach using three-channel sequence analysis |
| title_short | The partnership, fertility, and employment trajectories of immigrants in the United Kingdom: An intersectional life course approach using three-channel sequence analysis |
| title_sort | partnership fertility and employment trajectories of immigrants in the united kingdom an intersectional life course approach using three channel sequence analysis |
| topic | employment fertility immigrants multi-channel sequence analysis partnership United Kingdom |
| url | https://www.demographic-research.org/articles/volume/53/10 |
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