Fertility of Mexican immigrant women in the US: A closer look

Objective. The purpose of this paper is to examine how Mexican immigrants' fertility relates to duration of residence in the U.S. and compares to U.S.-born women of Mexican origin. I specifically look for evidence of selectivity, disruption, and assimilation effects. Methods. Using the birth and life histories available from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth, I present descriptive statistics of the two groups, compare their age-specific fertility rates, and analyze women's transitions to first, second, and third births using proportional hazard methods, with a focus on the effects of five categories of durations of stay in the U.S. (premigration, 0-2 years, 2-7 years, 7-15 years, and 15+). Results. The results lend evidence to all major hypotheses of immigrant fertility. Mexican immigrant women seem selective at the time of migration in ways likely to affect the relationship between immigration and fertility. The hypothesis that women's fertility is depressed in the years immediately following migration receives some support, particularly among women in the transition to a third birth. The evidence also lends support to an assimilation perspective, though again important exceptions emerge. Assimilation effects appear in the transitions to first and second births but weakly in the analysis of the third birth, and there is limited evidence of possible "downward" fertility assimilation among adolescent immigrants. Conclusions. This analysis highlights how the major perspectives on immigrant fertility are not mutually exclusive and indicates that for Mexican immigrants, women's parity conditions the way immigration and fertility interact.