November 30, 2012
The
U.S. birth rate plunged last year to a record low, with the decline
being led by immigrant women hit hard by the recession, according to a study released Thursday by the Pew Research Center.
The overall birth rate declined by 8 percent between 2007 and 2010,
with a decrease of 6 percent among U.S.-born women and 14 percent among
foreign-born women. The decline for Mexican immigrant women was more
extreme, at 23 percent. The overall birth rate is now at its lowest
since 1920, the earliest year with reliable records.
The decline
could have far-reaching implications for U.S. economic and social
policy. A continuing decline would challenge long-held assumptions that births to immigrants will help maintain the U.S. population and provide the taxpaying work force needed to support the aging baby boomer generation.
The
U.S. birth rate — 63.2 births per 1,000 women of child-bearing age —
has fallen to just over half of what it was at its peak in 1957. The
rate among foreign-born women also had been declining in recent decades,
according to the report, though more slowly.
But after 2007, as
the worst recession in decades dried up jobs and economic prospects
across the nation, the birth rate for immigrant women abruptly plunged.
The
fall is not because there are fewer immigrant women of childbearing
age, but because of a change in their behavior, said D’Vera Cohn, an
author of the report, adding that “the economic downturn seems to play a
pretty large role in the drop in the fertility rate.”
While the
declining U.S. birth rate has not yet created the stark imbalances in
graying countries such as Japan or Italy, it should serve as a wake-up
call for policymakers, said Roberto Suro, a professor of public policy
at the University of Southern California.
“We’ve been assuming
that when the baby boomer population gets most expensive, that there are
going to be immigrants and their children who are going to be paying
into [programs for the elderly], but in the wake of what’s happened in
the last five years, we have to reexamine those assumptions,” he said.
“When you think of things like the solvency of Social Security, for
example . . . relatively small increases in the dependency ratio can
have a huge effect.”
The falling birth rate mirrors what has
happened during other recessions. A Pew study last year found that a
decline in U.S. fertility rates was closely linked to hard times,
particularly among Hispanics.
“The economy can have an impact on
these long-term trends, and even the immigrants that we have been
counting on to boost our population growth can dip in a poor economy,”
said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, noting
that Hispanic women, who led the decline, occupy one of the country’s
most economically vulnerable groups.
Historically, once the economy rebounds after a recession, so does the birth rate, Cohn said.
But other factors may also be affecting the decline, and may not change much once the economy recovers.
A vast portion — 47 percent — of immigrants to the U.S. are of Hispanic origin. But in recent years immigration from Mexico,
the biggest contributing country, has dried up; for the first time
since the Great Depression, the net migration from Mexico has been zero.
Latino
immigrants who have been here longer tend to adopt U.S. attitudes and
behavior, including having smaller families, Suro said. He added that
the sharp decline in the birth rate among Mexican immigrants may be
explained by the fact that the rate was so high that there was more room
for it to fall.
And while the Hispanic birth rate may never
return to its highest levels, immigrants who have babies will likely
continue to boost overall fertility rates, said Frey, who saw the
current decline as a “short-term blip.” Immigrants from Asia, he said,
continue to move to the United States, though their birth rates are not
likely to approach that of Hispanic immigrants at their peak.
The
recent birth rate decline among Latino women may also be related to
enhanced access to emergency contraception and better sex education in
recent years, said Kimberly Inez McGuire, a senior policy analyst at the
National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health.
At Mary’s
Center, an organization in the District that provides social services to
low-income people, the waiting room on a recent morning was filled with
immigrants, many with swollen bellies. But not all were planning large
families.
Elsa Mendez, 22, a single woman from Guatemala who lives
in Petworth, is due to give birth to her first child in December, but
she said after this one she plans to go on birth control because she
wants a better life.
“Sometimes [Hispanic] people — they have a
lot of kids, and no talk about family planning,” she said. “I have
neighbors who have nine kids — they come from El Salvador and are all
together in the same room.”
But Mendez, a sales clerk, said she
sees American families with fewer children, and wants to emulate them.
“I want to have more money for her,” she said, referring to her unborn
child.
Mindy Greenside, director of midwifery at Mary’s Center,
said many more immigrant women are asking about contraception now than
five years ago.
One of them is Elizabeth Rosa, 37, a Salvadoran
who lives in Langley Park. Pregnant with her third child, she said it
will be her last. “To have more babies, it costs more,” she said as her
2-year-old son Emanuel played nearby.
Pointing to her belly, she
said she plans to have her tubes tied after giving birth. “The factory
is closing,” she said with a smile.
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