Understanding Generational Differences in Early Fertility: Proximate and Social Determinants

• Author: Rachel E. Goldberg
• Date: 01 October 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12506
• Published date: 01 October 2018

R E. G University of California Irvine

Understanding Generational Differences in Early

Fertility: Proximate and Social Determinants

Objective: This study investigated: (1) differ-

ences by generational status in the risk of early

childbearing; (2) to what extent observed dif-

ferences reected timing of sexual onset versus

postonset proximate determinants like contra-

ceptive use; and (3) the inuence of individual-,

family-, and neighborhood-level social factors.

Background: Although U.S. rates of early fer-

tility have declined, they remain high relative

to other high-income countries, and disparities

by population group persist. The share of the

youth population with immigrant parents has

expanded greatly, yet relatively little is known

about generational variations in early fertility.

Method: This study used Wave 1–4 data from

the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to

Adult Health (N=8,777 women). To distinguish

between the sexual onset and fertility processes,

a sequential hazard framework modelled: 1) the

transition to sexual activity,and 2) the transition

to rst birth among women who had initiated

sexual activity.

Results: Foreign-born and second-generation

young women initiated both sexual activity and

childbearing later than those with U.S.-born

parents. Sequential hazard models revealed the

importance of later sexual onset in explain-

ing delayed fertility among the foreign-born,

and of family attributes for their later sexual

Department of Sociology, Universityof California, Irvine,

3151 Social Science Plaza, Irvine, CA 92697

(rachel.goldberg@uci.edu).

Key Words: adolescent pregnancy, fertility/family plan-

ning, immigration/migrant families, sexual behavior,

youth/emergent adulthood.

onset. Postonset behaviors were essential to the

delayed childbearing observed among the sec-

ond generation.

Conclusion: Important differences by genera-

tional status exist in both the proximate determi-

nants and the social factors underlying children

of immigrants’ lower risk of early fertility.

Despite a dramatic drop during the past 2

decades, U.S. rates of early fertility remain high

relative to other high-income countries (Martin,

Hamilton, Osterman, Driscoll, & Mathews,

2017; United Nations Population Division,

2017), and within the United States, large

between-group differences persist (Sweeney

& Raley, 2014). In 2015, the birth rates of

non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic youth aged

15 to 19 years were roughly twice that of

non-Hispanic Whites; similar trends were

observable among 20- to 24-year-olds (Martin

et al., 2017). Births to women in their teens and

early 20s are linked with worse health and social

outcomes for mothers and offspring than births

to older women, even after accounting for fac-

tors that predispose women to early motherhood

(Chen, Wen, Fleming, Yang, & Walker, 2008;

Diaz & Fiel, 2016; Kane, Morgan, Harris, &

Guilkey, 2013).

Children of immigrants are the fastest grow-

ing segment of the U.S. population (Tienda &

Haskins, 2011) and can thus be expected to

increasingly shape U.S. fertility trends. Yet to

date relatively little research attention has been

given to variation by migration background in

early fertility despite a large literature describing

Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (October 2018): 1225–1243 1225

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12506

1226 Journal of Marriage and Family

and explaining racial variations in early child-

bearing (e.g., Sweeney & Raley,2014) and much

research on the cumulative fertility of immi-

grant women (e.g., Bean, Swicegood, & Berg,

2000; Parrado & Morgan, 2008). According to

recent estimates, roughly one in four U.S. chil-

dren aged younger than 18 years were foreign

born or of the second generation (U.S. born to at

least one foreign-born parent) in 2015, up from

13% in 1990 (Migration Policy Institute, 2017);

this share is projected to rise to one-third by 2050

(Passel, 2011).

Whether foreign-born and second-generation

women are at lower or higher risk of early

fertility relative to those with U.S.-born par-

ents is not straightforward to anticipate based on

existing research. Accumulating evidence that

children of immigrants initiate sexual activity

later on average than offspring of the U.S. born

(e.g., Harris, 1999; McDonald, Manlove, & Ikra-

mullah, 2009) might suggest a tendency also

toward later fertility.Nonetheless, other research

suggests that once sexually active, Hispanic

immigrant young women may use contraception

less consistently, and abortion less frequently,

than their U.S.-born counterparts (Aneshensel,

Becerra, Fielder, & Schuler, 1990; Manlove,

Steward-Streng, Peterson, Scott, & Wildsmith,

2013). Workdirectly investigating differences in

early fertility by generational status has yielded

results in the direction of both higher and lower

risk for children of immigrants (e.g., Aneshensel

et al., 1990; Glick, Ruf, White, & Goldscheider,

2006; Manlove et al., 2013; Rumbaut, 2008).

Analyzing data from the National Longitudi-

nal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add

Health), a nationally representative longitudinal

study of students in Grades 7 to 12, this study

asks three overarching research questions. First,

it asks whether and how children of immigrants

differ from those with U.S.-born parents in their

risk of early childbearing. Second, grounded in a

proximate determinants framework (Bongaarts,

1978, 2015; Davis & Blake, 1956), it asks to

what extent observed generational differences

in early fertility reect variation in timing of

sexual onset versus postonset behaviors such as

contraceptive use or abortion. Third, it inves-

tigates the social factors underlying observed

generational differences in both timing of sex-

ual onset and postonset fertility, as previous

studies have generally stopped short of identi-

fying mechanisms for observed differentials. I

consider factors spanning the individual, fam-

ily, and neighborhood levels, heeding calls by

others to consider the multiple environments in

which young people’s lives are enacted (Brown-

ing, Leventhal, & Brooks-Gunn, 2004; Leven-

thal & Brooks-Gunn, 2000).

B

Generational Differences in Fertility

A sizeable body of literature has examined child-

bearing patterns across immigrant generations,

focusing primarily on women’s cumulative fer-

tility. Consistent with social mobility and clas-

sical immigrant assimilation perspectives (Alba

& Nee, 1997), there is increasing consensus that

cumulative fertility declines with time in the

United States and across immigrant generations,

at least among Hispanic women (Choi, 2014;

Parrado, 2011; Parrado & Morgan, 2008).

Yet work attending to age-specic fer-

tility rates has revealed more complex

generational patterns among women in their

teens and early 20s. Frank and Heuve-

line (2005) observed higher fertility rates

among third-generation Mexican-origin women

younger than age 24 relative to earlier genera-

tions, suggesting—consistent with a segmented

assimilation perspective (Portes & Rumbaut,

2001)—that barriers to upward mobility among

youth from racial/ethnic minority groups may

lead to decreases in the opportunity costs

of early fertility. Choi (2004) found that the

fertility rates of 15- to 19-year-old Mexican

immigrants and U.S.-born Mexican Americans

were very similar, whereas older age groups dis-

played the pattern of decreasing fertility across

generations. Studies concentrated exclusively on

generational differences in teenage fertility have

produced mixed results; some have observed

lower risk of teen fertility among children of

immigrants relative to offspring of the U.S. born

(Glick et al., 2006; Guarini, Marks, Patton, &

García Coll, 2013; Rumbaut, 2008), and others

have found the opposite (Aneshensel et al.,

1990; Manlove et al., 2013).

Proximate Determinants of Fertility

Research on immigrant fertility has rarely

attended to the underpinnings of observed

generational differences. In unpacking fertility

trends, a common demographic approach dis-

tinguishes proximate determinants, a small set