A Cohort Analysis of Fertility Change in an Immigrant, Multiracial American Society

Caribert Irazi, U.S. Census Bureau

The recent and growing literature on levels and trends of fertility in the United States suggests that major shifts have occurred in the patterns of fertility in the past three decades. Most of the shifts are common to low-fertility countries, but fertility in the United States has remained at about replacement levels for the last 30 years. Some studies seeking to explain this relatively constant fertility observed in the United States have used cross-sectional data for major racial groups, but little has been said about the contribution of the foreign-born population to the American fertility. This paper seeks to contribute to the existing knowledge by analyzing cohort fertility behavior of foreign-born major racial groups in the United States. The analysis is based on data provided by the National Center of Health Statistics which cover most of the births in the country and include the major demographic characteristics of the mother.