Skewed Sex Ratios at Birth in Italian Migrant Populations: Evidence from a Longitudinal Register 1980-2017

Cinzia Castagnaro , Italian National Statistical Institute
Elena Ambrosetti, Sapienza Università di Roma
Marina Attili, Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT)
Livia Elisa Ortensi, Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna

Using the Longitudinal register on reproductive histories, a database on the children of all the Italian and foreign women living in Italy who had at least one child registered in the Italian Registry from 1999 to 2018, we perform analysis of SRB by birth order (first, second and third), sex of the previous child, intergenesic interval and citizenship of the mother. The analysis by birth order and sex of the previous child shows considerably higher than expected SRB for third births among Indian and Chinese communities when the first and second births are girls. A skewed SRB is also present among Indian babies born after a female firstborn. More detailed analysis of SRBs for immigrants from India, by the sex of the previous child and intergenesic interval between second and third birth, indicated that the selection-bias decreases when the intergenesic interval is longer. As further step of our analysis will be to investigate the determinants of the phenomenon. To perform this new analysis the information from the Longitudinal register on reproductive histories will be integrated with those from Delivery Certificate Survey, with the aim of outlining, in the country of destination, the factors related to this discriminatory behaviour towards girls. To carry out multivariate analysis on data referred to Italy, we’ll implement a logistic regression model only for citizenship with imbalanced sex ratio at birth and with significant presence in Italian territory. The dependent variable is the sex of the newborn child.

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 Presented in Session 75. Fertility in Migrant Populations