Family Religious Origins, Intermarriage, and Female Labor Force Participation among Children of U.S. Immigrants

• In Event: 469 - Section on International Migration Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. Religion and Migration

Abstract

Recent scholarship on the incorporation of female immigrants and their children into the US mainstream centers on cultural factors in addition to the structural barriers immigrant women face when joining the workforce in the U.S. (Donato, Piya, and Jacobs 2014; Read and Cohen 2007; Schiffrin, Liss, Geary, Miles-McLean, Tashner, Hagerman, and Rizzo 2014; Schoeni 1998; van Tubergen, Flap, and Maas 2004). We assess the intergenerational persistence of family cultural origins on the labor supply of second generation women in the US using data from the 1996-2013 Current Population Surveys combined with measures of the religious composition of 121 immigrant origin countries. We find a significant association between religion in the country of origin and female labor supply. Women whose parents migrated from Muslim countries work fewer hours each year than women from Christian countries, and women with family origins in Buddhist countries have a significantly greater labor supply. Religious background fully accounts for previous findings linking origin country labor force participation to US women’s labor supply. Among married and cohabiting women, intermarriage increases female labor supply. However, while intermarriage mediates the negative impact of Jewish cultural origins, intermarriage has no apparent mediating effect on women with family origins in Muslim or Buddhist countries.

Authors

• Patricia A. McManus, Indiana University

• Lauren Apgar, Indiana University