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Happily Ever After: Immigration, Natives' Marriage, and Fertility

Author

Listed:
  • Carlana, Michela

    (Harvard Kennedy School)

  • Tabellini, Marco

    (Harvard Business School)

Abstract

In this paper, we study the effects of immigration on natives' marriage, fertility, and family formation across US cities between 1910 and 1930. Instrumenting immigrants' location decision by interacting pre-existing ethnic settlements with aggregate migration flows, we find that immigration raised marriage rates, the probability of having children, and the propensity to leave the parental house for young native men and women. We show that these effects were driven by the large and positive impact of immigration on native men's employment and occupational standing, which increased the supply of “marriageable men.†We also explore alternative mechanisms--changes in sex ratios, natives' cultural responses, and displacement effects of immigrants on female employment--and provide evidence that none of them can account for a quantitatively relevant fraction of our results.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlana, Michela & Tabellini, Marco, 2018. "Happily Ever After: Immigration, Natives' Marriage, and Fertility," Working Paper Series rwp18-035, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp18-035
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    Cited by:

    1. So Yoon Ahn, 2021. "Matching across Markets: An Economic Analysis of Cross-Border Marriage," Working Papers 2021-047, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    2. Cansu Oymak & Jean-François Maystadt, 2023. "Can refugees improve native children’s health?: Evidence from Turkey," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2023017, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    3. Joseph Price & Christian vom Lehn & Riley Wilson, 2020. "The Winners and Losers of Immigration: Evidence from Linked Historical Data," NBER Working Papers 27156, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Tabellini, Marco, 2020. "Gifts of the Immigrants, Woes of the Natives: Lessons from the Age of Mass Migration," CEPR Discussion Papers 14317, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • N32 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

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