The fertility contribution of Mexican immigration to the United States

Crucial to the long-term contribution of immigration to a receiving country's population is the extent to which the immigrants reproduce themselves in subsequent, native-born generations. Using conventional projection methodologies, this fertility contribution may be poorly estimated primarily because of problems in projecting the number of immigrants who are at risk of childbearing. We propose an alternative method that obviates the need to project the number of immigrants by using the full sending-country birth cohort as the risk group to project their receiving-country childbearing. This "sending-country birth cohort" method is found to perform dramatically better than conventional methods when projecting to 1999 from base years both before and after the large increase in inflows of Mexican immigrants to the United States in the late 1980s. Projecting forward from 1999, we estimate a cumulative contribution of Mexican immigrant fertility from the 1980s to 2040 of 36 million births, including 25% to 50% more births after 1995 than are projected using conventional methods.     

Fiscal impacts of immigration to the United States

"The purpose of this paper is to fill a gap in the demographic literature by reviewing previous fiscal studies of immigration in the United States. Each study is introduced by describing the data it uses, the methodologies employed in calculating costs and revenues, and the resulting estimates of fiscal consequences. Evaluative comments are also stressed. Seventeen studies are included in this review, divided into those that emphasize national fiscal impacts (these studies aggregate the effects of immigrants across all levels of government), state fiscal impacts, and fiscal effects on local governments."     

Effects of the immigration act of 1965 on selected population characteristics of immigrants to the United States

Recent changes in immigration law have affected the characteristics of immigrants coming to the United States. The major changes in immigration policy contained in the 1965 Immigration Act, which amended the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, concerned the abolition of the quota system, preference system and labor clearances for certain classes of immigrants. The effects of these policy changes on two controversial characteristics of immigrants, their country of origin and occupational levels, are traced. The law led to clear changes in origin of immigrants. Southern European, Asian and Caribbean immigrants make up a larger proportion of immigrants than previously. Although the volume of immigration increased, the distribution of occupational levels remained about the same. The sources of the various occupational groups shifted to some extent, especially the professional level from Asian countries. Some effects of the policy changes and the changes in population characteristics on the American social and political scene are briefly outlined.     

Language usage and fertility in the Mexican-origin population of the United States

This article examines the effects of English proficiency and female education on cumulative and recent fertility within the Mexican-origin population in the U.S. To ascertain whether the cultural or the human capital aspects of linguistic variables have the greater salience for fertility behavior, fertility patterns of bilingual women are compared with those of monolingual women speaking English or Spanish. Using the 1980 U.S. Census 5 percent Public Use Microdata Sample for ever-married Mexican-origin women aged 15-44, we find that for almost all age cohorts, the effects of English proficiency are negative and increase with rising education. The strength of the interaction is greater in younger age groups. Greater English proficiency is also associated with a more negative impact of education for native- than foreign-born women. Overall, the influence of "opportunity cost," as opposed to cultural factors, is more important in shaping the fertility behavior of these women.     

Zero growth of the population of the United States

It is sometimes said that there is no population problem in the United States because the U.S. fertility rate is approximately at the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. However the population of the United States increased in 1992 by approximately three million people. There are two major causes of continued population growth even when fertility is approximately at the replacement level. One is population momentum; the other is immigration. This paper examines what must be done if we want to achieve zero growth of the population of the United States immediately, without the long delays caused by population momentum.     

Estimates of long-term immigration to the United States: Moving US statistics toward United Nations concepts

US immigration data are revised to reflect the UN demographic concept of long-term immigration. Long-term immigration is measured by the number of new immigrants (permanent resident aliens) arriving in the year, temporary migrant arrivals (nonimmigrants) who subsequently adjust to permanent resident status, arrivals of asylees and refugees, and nonimmigrants who arrive during the year and stay for more than twelve months before departing. The estimates of long-term immigration for 1983 are compared to official INS statistics on alien immigration. Significant differences emerge according to country of origin, age, and state of intended residence. A method of producing current estimates of long-term immigration is illustrated.     

Parity-specific fertility intentions and uncertainty: the United States, 1970 to 1976

A theoretical and analytic model of fertility intentions is proposed which treats “don’t know” responses and other uncertain responses as distinct from more firm intentions. Methodologically, these analyses show that “don’t know” responses need not be treated as missing data, but instead are both valid and meaningful responses. Furthermore, eliminating these uncertain respondents would have the negative effects of distorting across survey comparisons in intentions due to shifts in aggregate uncertainty, reducing the likelihood of accurately detecting shifts in fertility intentions, and lessening the representatives of the sample analyzed. Substantively, in conjunction with Morgan (1981), these results show that the sharp 1965–76 decline in the likelihood of intending more births at parities 2 through 5 occurred as women halted childbearing at minimal acceptable levels and postponed further childbearing. With time (or age), this delayed fertility became fertility about which the respondent was uncertain and, finally, fertility foregone. Since 1970, similar shifts are observed at parities 0 and 1, perhaps foreshadowing an increase in voluntary childlessness and one-child families.     

Religion and fertility in the United States: New patterns

In the United States, the baby boom-era pattern of high Catholic and low Protestant fertility has ended. Among non-Hispanic whites in the 1980s, Catholic total fertility rates (TFRs) were about one-quarter of a child lower than Protestant rates (1.64 vs. 1.91). Most of the Protestant-Catholic difference is related to later and less frequent marriage among Catholics. Future research on the demography of religious groups should focus on explaining the delayed marriage pattern of Catholics, the high fertility of Mormons and frequently attending Protestants, and the very low fertility of those with no religious affiliation.     

Marriage markets and nonmarital fertility in the United States

We merge census microdata with vital statistics data to examine the effect of women's marriage opportunities on nonmarital fertility rates and ratios across 75 U.S. metropolitan areas. Measures of the quantity and "quality" of marriageable men simultaneously specific for women's age, race, education, and place of residence reveal especially poor marriage prospects for highly educated black women. The effect of mate availability on nonmarital fertility is generally modest. Among white women, marriage opportunities are associated inversely with the nonmarital fertility rate, perhaps reflecting an increased likelihood that a premarital conception will be legitimated. Marriage opportunities also reduce nonmarital fertility ratios for young black and white women. The nonmarital fertility rate is lower among women whose marriage pool includes a large percentage of nonemployed males. Only a small proportion of the racial difference in nonmarital fertility appears attributable to differences in the marriage markets of black and of white women.     

Business cycles and fertility dynamics in the United States

Using recent developments in time-series econometrics, this paper investigates the behavior of fertility over the business cycle. The sex-specific unemployment rates, the divorce rate and the fertility rate are shown to be governed by stochastic trends. Furthermore, fertility is determined to be cointegrated with the divorce rate.In the bivariate vector-autoregressions between fertility and unemployment, an increase in the female or male unemployment rates generate a decrease in fertility, which is consistent with the findings of previous time-series research concerning the procyclical behavior of fertility. However, when the models include the divorce rate and the proportion of young marriages as additional regressors, shocks to the unemployment rates bring about an increase in fertility, implying the countercyclicality of fertility. This outcome holds for the time period 1948–1982, as well as 1972–1982.I would like to thank Clive Granger, Michael Grossman, Theodore Joyce, Salih Neftei, Jeffrey Zax and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. Any errors reflect my shortcomings only. This paper is the revised version of the National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 3177. It has not undergone the review accorded official NBER publications; in particular, it has not been submitted for approval by the Board of Directors.     

United States population estimates and components of change: 1970 to 1987

This report analyzes year-to-year change in the US population from 1970 to 1987, including natural increase and net civilian immigration. Data are drawn from Current Population Reports. 1) The January 1, 1988 total population including Armed Forces overseas was over 245 million. This reflects a .9% increase over January 1, 1987, and an increase of 18 million since the April 1, 1980 census. 2) In the beginning of 1988, Whites numbered 206,979 million, Blacks 30,083, and Blacks and other races 38,130. 3) The crude birth rate dipped from 15.9 in 1980 to 15.6 in 1987; there is no evidence of a consistent trend since 1980. 4) The 3.8 million births in 1987 reflect a continuation of the gradual increase births that has been occurring since the mid-1970s, an increase attributed to Baby Boomers. 5) There was an 8.7/1000 death rate in 1987. This rate has fluctuated in the 8.5-8.7/1000 range since 1977 after declining from 9.4/1000 in 1972. The 2.1 million deaths in 1987 continue the gradual increase that has occurred since the end of the 1940s. This increase is attributed to the growth in population and to the population's continued aging. 6) Net immigrants/1000 population dropped slightly to 2.5 in 1987, down from 2.7 in 1986 and 3.7 in 1980. 7) Rates of growth for both Blacks and Whites have declined substantially since 1960; Blacks declined by about 1/3 (from 2.2%) and Whites by more than 1/2 (from 1.5%). The population of other races increased by 4.5% in 1987. The Black population grew by 1.5% in 1987, compared with a growth of .7% for the White population.     

Nonmarital cohabitation and fertility in the United States and Western Europe

The increasing popularity of nonmarital cohabitation and a decline in marriage rates in the United States and Western Europe has led to a growing research interest in cohabitation without marriage and its relationship to traditional marriage. This article examines the evidence on the prevalence of cohabitation and the characteristics of cohabitants, and focuses on the childbearing behavior of cohabiting couples who are not married. The evidence to date suggests that in Denmark and Sweden cohabitation is widespread, especially among young people, and childbearing within cohabitational unions is relatively common. In the rest of Western Europe and in the United States, cohabitation is less common and fertility is less frequent. Fertility will be affected to the extent that couples delay having children until they are married. Policy and law concerning cohabitants and their children are changing rapidly. Most of these changes have resulted in a blurring of the distinctions between married and unmarried couples and between legitimate and illegitimate children.     

Labor market effects of immigration in the United States and Europe: substitution vs. complementarity

This paper examines the impact of immigrants on the income of various groups of resident workers in the United States and Europe. Our approach features the use of a production technology incorporating education, experience, and unskilled labor as inputs. This contrasts with the assumption used in earlier studies that native-born and immigrant labor are distinct inputs into production. We find that in both United States and European production, education, unskilled labor and experience are complementary inputs. Based on these results, simulations of the impact of immigration on residents are carried out. The absolute magnitude of these effects is found to be very small.This paper was presented at the Centre for Economic Policy Research Workshop, The Economics of International Migration: Econometric Evidence, February 26 and 27, 1993, Konstanz, Germany. We benefitted from the discussion at the conference and, particularly, the comments of Anton Muscatelli. We thank three referees and the managing editor of this journal for their suggestions. We also thank Selig Sechzer for his significant contributions to the empirical analysis in this paper. Ira Gang's work was partially supported by the Rutgers University Research Council.     

Temporal and spatial variation in age-specific net migration in the United States

As fertility differences in the United States diminish, population redistribution trends are increasingly dependent on migration. This research used newly developed county-level age-specific net migration estimates for the 1990s, supplemented with longitudinal age-specific migration data spanning the prior 40 years, to ascertain whether there are clear longitudinal trends in age-specific net migration and to determine if there is spatial clustering in the migration patterns. The analysis confirmed the continuation into the 1990s of distinct net migration "signature patterns" for most types of counties, although there was temporal variation in the overall volume of migration across the five decades. A spatial autocorrelation analysis revealed large, geographically contiguous regions of net in-migration (in particular, Florida and the Southwest) and geographically contiguous regions of net out-migration (the Great Plains, in particular) that persisted over time. Yet the patterns of spatial concentration and fragmentation over time in these migration data demonstrate the relevance of this "neighborhood" approach to understanding spatiotemporal change in migration.     

Effect on unwanted fertility of extending physician-administered birth control in the United States

A goal of publicly subsidized family planning programs in the United States is to prevent unwanted births, and the primary means being used to achieve this goal is to increase coverage with physician-administered contraception, with priority being given to persons from low-income families. We analyzed data from families living in low-income neighborhoods to determine whether that means would contribute to that goal, and if so, how much unwanted fertility might be decreased through increased coverage with physician-administered methods.The results indicate that increased coverage with those methods would decrease unwanted fertility by 80 percent (79 percent among blacks, 83 percent among whites). Increasing the ratio of sterilization to pill and IUD makes the effect of the increased coverage even more dramatic.     

Influence of instantaneous fertility decline to replacement level on population growth: An alternative model

If age-specific birth rates m, of a stable population drop abruptly tom _x/R ₀, whereR ₀ is the net reproduction rate, then, according to Keyfitz, the size of the ultimate stationary population relative to.that at the beginning of the process is given byI =be ⁰ ₀ R ₀ ? 1)/(rμR ₀, whereb andr are the birth rate and the rate of growth, respectively, of the stable population,e ₀ ⁰ the life expectancy at birth, andμ the average age at childbirth in the resulting stationary population. Noting that the decline inm _x need not necessarily be uniform, investigation has been carried out to examine the effect on Iwhen fertility decline is more rapid at higher ages. In particular, the effect of the reduced age-specific rates such asm _xe^? rx (which also produces a stationary population) has been analyzed, and simplifications of the results carried out separately for three different models of the net maternity function. It has also been shown that when m, drops abruptly to somem _x ^*, where the form ofm _x ^* need not be specified except for the restriction that the resulting population will be stationary, the value of the index can be approximately obtained fromI ^* =be ₀ ⁰ (1 -rμ/2), whereμ is the average age at childbearing of the initial stable population.