Fertility Patterns of 1.5 Generation Women Focusing on Educational Attainment

Sam Hyun Yoo, Arizona State University

This paper investigates the impact of immigration on the transition to motherhood among Hispanic women in the U.S. based on several theoretical hypotheses. With recent NSFG data (2006-2008), time-variant covariates including immigration, marital status, and education are utilized in the hazard regression analysis in order to reflect individual life-course events. The result presents that there are significant difference in transition to motherhood between Hispanic American and Hispanic immigrant in the U.S. The adaptation processes in fertility of immigrant women have diverse directions, and they are being influenced by complicated interplay of the events. Analyses of the study provide the evidence that fertility patterns of immigrant women assimilate as time in country of host, but they are distorted by structural factors at the same time.