Hispanic Fertility, Immigration, and Race in the Twenty-First Century

In this paper, we systematically describe the connection between immigration and fertility in light of the increasing nativist
reaction to Hispanic groups. We follow a life-course perspective to directly link migration and fertility transitions. The
analysis combines original qualitative and quantitative data collected in Durham/Chapel Hill, NC as well as national level
information from the current population survey. The qualitative data provide a person-centered approach to the connection
between migration and fertility that we then extend in quantitative analyses. Results demonstrate that standard demographic
measures that treat migration and fertility as separate processes considerably distort the childbearing experience of immigrant
women, inflating fertility estimates for Hispanics as a whole. Once this connection is taken into consideration, the fertility
levels of Hispanic women are much lower than those reported with standard measures and the fertility-specific contribution
of Hispanics to US population growth is much reduced.