ASSIMILATION, DISRUPTION AND THE FERTILITY OF MEXICAN-ORIGIN WOMEN IN THE UNITED-STATES

This research uses 1970 and 1980 Census data to test hypotheses about the effects of adaptation, assimilation and disruption on the fertility of Mexican-origin women. In the absence of longitudinal or life history data, the kinds of forces affecting immigrant group fertility can be inferred by: 1) examining the degree to which Mexican-origin women disaggregated by nativity or generational groups differ in fertility behavior from non-Hispanic Whites; 2) analyzing both current and cumulative fertility; 3) comparing the fertility of nativity or generational groups disaggregated by age of women and period of immigration; and 4) conducting cohort analyses between more than one time period. The findings show evidence of both assimilation and disruption effects on reproductive behavior. Fertility is found to decline the greater the length of familial exposure to the United States and, in the case of younger groups of immigrant women, to fall below the level of U.S.-born Mexican-origin and non-Hispanic White women when other variables are held constant. These results illustrate why assimilation effects on immigrant group fertility have often not emerged in previous research. They also imply that the fertility behavior of the Mexican-origin population is likely to come to resemble that of the rest of the population the longer this group resides in the United States.