Fertility in the Context of Mexican Migration to the United States

Kate H. Choi, Western University

The fertility behavior of Mexican immigrants remains poorly understood because data limitations have prevented researchers from accurately estimating their fertility levels and determining how their fertility changes within and across generations. This papers pool birth histories from Mexico and the United States to (1) obtain more accurate fertility estimates; (2) gain better insights about how fertility changes within an immigrant woman’s life course and across generations; and (3) examine the role of educational selectivity and assimilation in the high fertility of Mexican immigrants and subsequent changes in fertility within and across generations. Migration from Mexico to the U.S. is positively selective with respect to fertility. Migrants disrupt their fertility in anticipation of migration, but resume their pre-migration fertility and even compensate for the earlier fertility loss after they migrate. Fertility of Mexican immigrants decreases within and across generations, moving away from pre-migration fertility and converging towards the fertility of Whites.