Immigrant Selectivity and Fertility Adaptation in the United States*

This examination of the fertility of immigrants moving to the United States from high fertility countries tests several hypotheses about the process of assimilation and the impact of selectivity using microdata from the 1980 U.S. Census and ag-gregate data from the sending countries. Unlike previous assimilation studies that focus on integration into the destination society, this study emphasizes the dy-namic nature of the assimilation process by modeling the declining impact of the origin cultural setting. Although part of the variability among immigrant groups can be attributed to compositional differences, sending-country fertility levels con-tinue to exert a positive influence on immigrant fertility behavior. However, this influence is considerably weaker among immigrants who are positively selected with respect to their sending-country populations, presumably because they adapt more rapidly to the destination society. Additional evidence suggests that in gen-eral, as immigrants adapt to the U.S., they are less and less influenced by their origin social environments. In recent years the United States has experienced a dramatic rise in the volume of immigration as well as a shift in its sources. Since the mid-1960s increasing numbers of immigrants have come to the U.S. from Asia and Latin America—regions characterized by high fertility levels. At the same time the United States experienced a fertility decline that has stabilized at a record low rate. With barely replacement-level fertility, the prospects for continued population growth now depend to a large extent on the influx of new immigrants and their subsequent fertility. The potential impact of immigration on the rate of U.S. population growth as well as its composi