Fertility Implications of Family-Based Regularizations

Event Date: 4 November 2020

Speaker: Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes, University of California-Merced

Time: 4.00-5.00pm

Abstract: We examine the fertility impact of a change in immigration policy granting temporary legal status to undocumented immigrants based on their offspring’s nationality. The policy, enacted in a 2011 Royal Decree in Spain, recognized the ability for undocumented parents of eligible nationalities to become temporary legal residents if they had a Spanish child. Using data from the Spanish Labor Force Survey (2007-2016), along with a quasi-experimental approach that exploits the change in legal residency eligibility requirements, we show that the decree increased the childbearing likelihood of eligible mothers by 43 percent, increasing the overall fertility rate by 0.6 percent.

Published: 8 April 2021