Trends and Compositional Changes in Fertility: California Circa 1970–1990

Abstract

Since 1970 California has been the prime destination of the high numbers of both legal and illegal U.S. entrants. Fertility consequences have been dramatic. Births to U.S.-born women, after the decline in the 1970s and mild rebound in the 1980s, neared the 1970 level of 325,000. Yet total births rose from 360,000 to 600,000 in 1992. White non-Hispanic women bore nearly 70% of births in 1970 but 38% in 1992; Hispanic women, 20% in 1970 and 44% in 1992; others (primarily Asian ancestry), 3% and 10% respectively; and blacks, 9% and 7.5%. In the same period the proportion of births to U.S. natives fell from 89% to 56%; that to Mexican nationals rose from 7% to 27% (a six-fold increase absolutely); and that to women of all other birthplaces rose from 3% to 18%. Filipino women (the second largest category of foreign-born women) have borne 2% of all births since 1980. The increase in Mexican-born mothers was especially sharp after 1985, while the estimated Hispanic TFR rose 30% to 3.5 children per woman. In 1992 California's TFR was 2.42—18% above the U.S. average. In 1970 nearly 95% of teen mothers were U.S.-born, and 20% were Hispanic. In 1992, 61% of teen mothers were U.S. nationals; 60% were Hispanic, over half of them Mexican-born. The large increase in births in the 1980s, especially those to cultures supporting early childbearing, presages a sharp increase in births beginning in 2000. Meanwhile, the 5 years' median schooling of Mexican migrants has resulted in a parallel decline in parental education. Given the positive correlation of parental education and school achievement and attainment, California can expect a decline in the latter and hence lower labor productivity, incomes, and tax revenues by the young adults of the twenty-first century.