Abstract
Objective: We analyse the employment patterns of childless first-generation migrants to Germany. In particular, we focus on the behaviour of female "marriage migrants". Marriage migrants are defined as individuals who married after their spouse had moved to Germany.
 Background: Demographic studies have illustrated that marriage migrants have particularly high childbirth rates upon arrival. There is, however, little empirical evidence on how the childbearing behaviour of migrant women is related to their employment behaviour.
 Method: We use event history techniques to study women's labour market entry after migration in relation to their childbearing behaviour. We draw on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). The analytical sample is restricted to immigrant women who moved while childless to Germany between 1990 and 2016 (n=981).
 Results: Compared to other groups, marriage migrants have very low chances of entering the labour market. Only 32 per cent of the migrants in our sample had ever participated in the labour market in the five-year period after their arrival in Germany. A large share of the differences between these migrants and other migrants can be attributed to the socio-demographic composition of these women, and to their tendency to transition to parenthood soon after their arrival.
 Conclusion: We argue that the low employment rates of female marriage migrants must also be viewed in the context of Germany’s migration policies, which do not provide many routes for female third-country nationals to move to Germany. One of the few available channels is that of marriage migration. We conclude by discussing the social policy implications of these findings at a time when Germany is gradually becoming a dual-earner society.
Highlights
There is a large body of literature on the employment behaviour of migrants
We argue that the low employment rates of female marriage migrants must be viewed in the context of Germany’s migration policies, which do not provide many routes for female third-country nationals to move to Germany
We find that single migrants entered the labour market rapidly, while spousal migrants entered later
Summary
There is a large body of literature on the employment behaviour of migrants. While many of the studies on this topic have focused on male migrants (see, e.g., Uhlendorff & Zimmermann 2014; Fertig & Schurer 2007; Kogan 2011, 2007, 2004; Velling 1995) or have compared women and men (e.g., Salikutluk et al 2020; Krieger 2019), relatively few of these studies have focused on women. The theoretical starting point of our investigation is the classical model of family migration, proposed by Mincer (1978) This classical framework – which distinguishes between tied movers and tied stayers – has regularly been employed to study the employment behaviour of internal and international migrants (e.g., Cooke 2001; Lersch 2016). The German Central Alien Register documents the legal grounds for migration, including “family reunion with a spouse” The drawback of these data is that they cover third-country nationals, but they do not fully cover migrants from other regions. This paper contributes to the literature in several ways It provides novel evidence on the employment and family behaviour of first-generation migrant women in Germany. The analysis is largely descriptive, and compares the employment and childbearing patterns of key groups of female migrants (single migrants, spousal migrants, and marriage migrants). The question of how male marriage migrants perform on the labour market is underresearched, and is not addressed in this investigation
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