Fertility Differentials of Iraqi Immigrant Women with Iranian Counterparts

Migration is one of the important demographic processes that accompanied with significant changes in individual and social levels. Due to large-scale of international migration and increasing role of migration in shaping the population dynamics, the integration of immigrants and its economic, social, cultural, political and demographic consequences has been considered by policy makers and academies. Using secondary analysis of micro- census data 2006 and 2011, the aim of this study is to explore fertility differentials of Iraqi immigrant women compared with their Iranian counterparts.
The results indicated changes in Iraqi immigrant's fertility in Iran. Although, Iraqi immigrant’s women still have a higher fertility levels compared with the Iranian women, they have a lower fertility levels than their counterparts in Iraq. The path of these changes is toward more similarity and convergence with the destination society. The fertility differentials with controlling for socio-economic characteristics have 50 percent reduced. Thus, part of the fertility differentials of Iraqi immigrant women compared with their Iranian counterparts returns to different socio-economic status of them and another part of this differentials may returns to distinct history, customs and socio-cultural values of both countries.