Over the past decades, the world has witnessed significant social and demographic changes, including a declining fertility rate in Europe, a decrease in job security and flexibilisation of the labour market, and an increasing flow of migrants to the Global North. Especially migrants have been affected by precarious work arrangements. However, little research has been conducted on the specific impact of employment uncertainty on migrant fertility intentions. Using binary logistic regression models, this study looks at the effect of both objective and subjective indicators of a precarious employment situation on short-term fertility intentions using the Swedish GGS-II survey data. The analysis includes both migrants and Swedish-born individuals and covers men and women separately, which is rare in previous research that has focused chiefly on women only. The findings suggest that the impact of unemployment on fertility intentions differs between migrant and Swedish-born women and men. Specifically, being an unemployed migrant, compared to being unemployed and Swedish-born appears to increase the likelihood of expressing a positive fertility intention. The time since arrival for female migrants does not moderate the effect of employment status. However, for female migrants in education who have resided in Sweden for at least five years, the probability of stating a positive fertility intention is substantially reduced compared to newly arrived migrant women. Moreover, the probability of expressing a positive fertility intention increases when a migrant woman perceives job loss as likely in the near future relative to Swedish-born women with similar job security perceptions. Regarding men, the results are less conclusive, with no substantial differences observed in the impact of the likelihood of job loss on fertility intentions between migrant and Swedish-born men. The study suggests that despite the importance of the institutional setting for fertility decision-making, other mechanisms are at play, too: migrants and Swedish-born individuals seem to respond differently to labour market uncertainties and especially unemployment.

Prevailing low fertility rates in several European states, such as Germany, have been studied widely in recent years. Findings include discrepancies between fertility preference and actual family size as well as between fertility intentions and fertility behavior; an ‘unmet need’ for children found on the individual and the societal level. Fertility preference is specified as the individual ideal number of children, and fertility intentions as the long- or short-term plans to have a child. Apart from investigating the rates of realization, these measures have been understudied. The objective of this study is to illuminate a new angle of low fertility rates in Germany by reviewing fertility measures previously considered to be stable predictors of fertility behavior. The aim is to investigate the stability of fertility preferences and of positive short-term fertility intentions of Germans in their reproductive age. According to the Theory of Planned Behavior and the life-course perspective, attitudes and experiences can influence fertility preferences and short-term fertility intentions. In this study, the suspected connection between unstable preferences and intentions and certain attitudes towards and experiences with the career, working life, and childcare situation is examined. These processes are expected to differ between men and women, and between childless individuals, parents with one child and parents with more than one child. Using data from seven survey waves of the German family panel pairfam, fixed-effects and random-effects regression models are run separately for women and men and for those of different parities. The results suggest that those with high career importance and those who expect or perceive a negative effect of children on the career are more likely to have unstable positive intentions. Although fertility preferences are shown to be somewhat unstable, no relevant relationships can be found. The differences between the findings on men and women regarding relevant determinants and direction of the relationships are unexpectedly small. Childless individuals are as likely to hold unstable preferences and intentions as parents.