Levels and trends in fertility of natives and migrants in and across North America

• In Event: Crossroads of Change: How Migration, Aging, and Fertility Reshape Nations

Abstract

Fertility has many plausible determinants. They include behaviors that evolved through positive selection over many generations in a given population, cultural factors that protect families and young children, economic factors that govern the cost of raising and educating a child. We estimate difference-in-difference models to describe whether and how fertility differs for people who did and did not migrate from Mexico to the US and Canada. Specifically, we describe patterns in fertility among North American residents living in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. We exploit panel data that identifies each person’s country of birth, country of residence, time of migration, and the number and birthdates of all offspring. We observe these data for both people in a coupled partnership. With these data we can compare, for example, fertility of partners who are both Mexican-born and living in Canada and the United States relative to fertility of two Mexican-born partners still living in Mexico. Because we observe the calendar year people migrated, we can control for “push-pull” factors identified in the literature as correlated to a person’s decision to migrate. We use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics 1968-2023 (US), survey data from repeated cross-sections of the National Survey of Household Income and Expenditure survey (Encuesta Nacional de Ingresos y Gastos de los Hogares (ENIGH)) 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022 and panel data from the Mexican Family Life Survey 2002-2012 (Mexico), and the cross-sectional Canadian Community Health Study.  We will compare the age at first birth of Mexican-born migrants in the US to observationally equivalent Mexicans who remained in Mexico and to observationally equivalent US-born residents. We will also describe the total number of children born to women age 45 and older, by birth cohort in ten year intervals.

Author

• Dean R Lillard, The Ohio State University
  Presenting Author