A considerable literature explores whether the fertility of migrants from high-fertility contexts converges with that of women in lower fertility destinations. Nonetheless, much of this research compares migrants’ reproductive outcomes to those of native-born women in destination countries. Drawing on research emphasizing the importance of transnational perspectives, we standardize and integrate data collected in France (the destination) and in six high-fertility African countries (the senders). We show that African migrants in our sample had higher children ever born (CEB) than native French women but lower CEB than women in corresponding origin countries. These findings suggest that socialization into pronatalist norms is an incomplete explanation for migrant fertility in the first generation, an insight that is overlooked when analyzing destination settings only. Next, we conduct multivariate analyses that weight migrants’ background characteristics to resemble women in both origin and destination countries. Findings indicate that observed differences between African migrants in France and women in African origin countries help explain differences in CEB between the two groups, which supports selection. We also demonstrate that African migrants in France had delayed transitions into first, second, and third births and lower completed fertility compared to women in origin countries, thus disputing the disruption hypothesis. Finally, we show that observed differences between African migrants in France and native French women explain differences in CEB between the two groups, which supports adaptation. These multifaceted findings on selection, disruption, and adaptation would be obscured by analyzing destination settings only, thus validating a multisited approach to migrant fertility.

大量文献探讨了来自高生育率地区的移民的生育率是否与低生育率目的地的妇女的生育率趋同。尽管如此，大部分研究还是将移民的生殖结果与目的地国本地出生的女性的生殖结果进行了比较。我们利用强调跨国视角重要性的研究，对在法国（目的地）和六个高生育率非洲国家（发送者）收集的数据进行标准化和整合。我们发现，样本中的非洲移民的出生子女数 (CEB) 高于法国本土女性，但低于相应原籍国女性的出生子女数 (CEB)。这些发现表明，社会化为生育主义规范并不能完全解释第一代移民的生育率，这一见解在仅分析目的地环境时被忽视。接下来，我们进行多变量分析，权衡移民的背景特征，使其与原籍国和目的地国的女性相似。研究结果表明，在法国的非洲移民和非洲原籍国的妇女之间观察到的差异有助于解释两个群体之间 CEB 的差异，这支持了选择。我们还证明，与原籍国的妇女相比，法国的非洲移民推迟了第一胎、第二胎和第三胎的过渡，并且完成生育率较低，因此对破坏假说提出了质疑。最后，我们发现在法国的非洲移民和法国本土女性之间观察到的差异解释了两组之间 CEB 的差异，这支持了适应。仅分析目的地环境就会掩盖这些关于选择、破坏和适应的多方面发现，从而验证了移民生育率的多地点方法。