January 31, 2025
Immigration Infertility
Timothy Birdnow
Immigration negatively impacts the fertility of Americans, especially the middle and working classes.
FTA:
There are intangibles that are not addressed in this analysis. For instance, there is the decline in hope as America changes into something unrecognizable by the native born. The endless waves of immigrants lead to massive cultural changes that disturb the native born; it's not the world they knew. The end result is they are reluctant to bring children into a world that is in flux. Being able to predict conditions when you raise children is an important consideration.
In short Americans are feeling like strangers in a strange land. If you grew up in, say, Illinois you would be flabbergasted at the dramatic change that has happened in your state. I visited the northern Illinois town of Rockford a number of years ago and was astonished to see it; it appeared like a Mexican border town - on the south side of the Rio Grande. Who wants to raise children when their counttry is turning into an alien nation?
Also, there is the decline of social organizations and institutions that used to offer assistance to the poor or those down on their luck. There used to be multiple resources that were available through groups like the Knights of Columbus or the Optimists or the Rotaries or the Masons. But these groups are all dying and that because of the cultural shift tied to massive immigration. Hondurans don't join these "white boy clubs". Nor do they become members of the traditional American churches, churches which provided a great deal of aid to struggling families.
Fewer resources discourages child rearing.
And to help make Americans more accepting of immigrants we've had the big DEI push, using guilt as a driver to make white Americans ashamed. This too has it's impact as so many younger Americans don't want to "pass on the bad blood" and feel they should die out. Without all this massive immigration DEI would have had a much harder time taking root.
How did the English language come into being? It was an amalgamation of French and the nordic Old English. The Normans were not a huge portion of the population there when they came; but they showed up, took over, made everyone speak French, and allowed a bunch of immigrants to come in. The older peoples of England - the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and especially the old Britons aka Welch, simply melted into the invaders' pot. Their population declines as the incoming settlers increased.
While this was good for those who actually won it, the question remains about how the losers felt about the takeover and loss of their land. There is no England now, except as a geographical location. Would that have happened had the Normans not invaded and crushed the old culture?
But what we are seeing in America is a much, much larger invasion, and by people who are quite different from those who invaded England at the time.
Americans sense they are losing control of our country. While the best thing we could do would be to have more babies, not fewer, the tendency is to have fewer hostages to fate. Nobody wants to be the once-rulers of a nation who become outnumbered and at the mercy of people who now have power over you.
We need to stop ALL immigration to the U.S. and do so for a long time. We did it before, in 1924 (the Johnson-Reed act) through 1965 (the Ted Kennedy sponsored Immigration and Naturalization Act). Throughout that period we had very little immigration and it almost all came from Europe or European-settled countries (like Australia). We've had a fifty year long experiment with largely open borders and now we are facing an existential crisis. Our culture is dying. Who could have predicted that? A lot of people. In fact the Democrats did which is why they pushed it; they wanted to change America and give themselves eternal power.
Time we went back to the Johnson Reed Act.)
Immigration negatively impacts the fertility of Americans, especially the middle and working classes.
FTA:
"The total fertility rate (TFR) of a
population is the average number of children that women would have in
their lifetimes, assuming their rates of childbearing at each age match
today’s rates. Although immigrants do have a higher TFR than natives in
the U.S., the presence of immigrants raises the combined TFR by only a
small amount. As Figure 1 indicates, the native TFR was 1.73 in 2023,
while the overall TFR, which combines both natives and immigrants, was
1.80. The apparent gain due to immigration is just 0.07 children per
woman.
Of course, the gain could be greater with more immigration, but the immigrant TFR is simply not large enough to make a dramatic impact. The immigrant share of women of childbearing age already stood at a record high of 15 percent in 2023, and doubling that share would boost the overall TFR to just 1.87.
Reaching the replacement level of 2.1 through immigration would be virtually impossible without reorienting our system toward the few parts of the world that still have high TFRs, such as Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. If imported on a large scale, immigrants from those places may solve the problem of low national TFR — assuming their own fertility does not plummet upon reaching a wealthy country — but their low skill levels and cultural distance from the West would create many new problems as well.
[...]
In fact, recent research suggests that immigration impacts native fertility — positively in part, but mostly negatively — through a variety of mechanisms.
Child Care. One mechanism is cheaper child care. A 2015 article in the IZA Journal of Migration finds higher fertility among college-educated, native-born women when they live in places with higher levels of low-skill immigration. The author theorizes that such immigration has made daycare more affordable for these women by lowering the wage of child care workers. Obviously, this native fertility increase is narrowly focused, and one could speculate — although the paper does not — that the childbearing decisions made by lower-skilled natives who may compete with immigrants for jobs could be affected very differently.
Wages and Employment. Indeed, the literature shows that immigrants tend to put downward pressure on the wages and employment opportunities not only of child care workers, but of all the U.S. workers with whom they compete. A book-length report published in 2017 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine includes a long list of studies demonstrating that relationship. Workers who experience job instability are in turn less likely to have children, as a 2004 article in the Journal of Population Economics points out.
Housing. Another mechanism by which immigration could affect native fertility is housing costs. A robust literature shows that immigration leads to higher rents and house prices. For example, a 2017 study in the Journal of Housing Economics finds that a 1 percent population increase due to immigration in a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is associated with a 0.8 percent increase in rents in that MSA, along with a 1.6 percent increase in surrounding MSAs. For house prices, the increase was again 0.8 percent in the target MSA, but 9.6 percent in surrounding MSAs. The large spillover effects are likely due to native flight from high-immigration areas.
If couples are unable to afford sufficient housing, they may not have as many children as they desire. That is the finding of a 2014 paper appearing in the Journal of Public Economics, which estimated a 2.4 percent decrease in fertility among non-homeowners for every $10,000 increase in home prices. There is a twist, however, in that fertility actually appeared to increase among people who already own their homes, leading to a combined positive effect on fertility of 0.8 percent immediately following a price increase. A more recent study in Labour Economics employs a cross-country analysis in which the combined effect is negative. In either case, the immediate impact of immigration on native fertility is not large, but the positive impact that high earners may enjoy comes at the expense of lower earners.
In assessing the linkage between housing prices and fertility, it is important to distinguish between the immediate impact on fertility and the lifetime impact. When housing prices change, do women merely shift their planned childbearing to a different time, or is their lifetime fertility affected? Although the shift theory is plausible for the established homeowners who have more children when their equity increases, a lifetime impact is more likely for young women still searching for suitable housing. A study published last year in Population Research and Policy Review shows that renters in expensive housing markets tend to delay childbearing, which in turn decreases their expected lifetime fertility. "Even temporary housing unaffordability ... might have long-lasting effects on the age pyramid,” the authors write. A 2009 article in Regional Science and Urban Economics similarly finds that completed fertility is lower in metropolitan areas with high housing costs.
Diversity. Immigration could also affect native fertility by increasing the nation’s ethnic diversity. A new working paper out of Boston College documents a negative association between diversity in a locality and the number of children that residents have.1 The relationship holds across many places and time periods, under a variety of model specifications. It may be due to "homophily”, the statistical tendency for similar people to associate with each other, in that diversity can make finding a same-ethnicity marriage partner more difficult. It may also be due to the broader decline in community engagement that political scientist Robert Putnam observed in diverse areas. In any case, a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the increase in diversity caused by immigration could have lowered native TFR enough to fully negate the impact of immigrants’ higher fertility on the national TFR.2
Combined Effects. The studies cited above show how immigration impacts a particular variable (such as housing costs or diversity) and then shows how that variable impacts fertility. What is the combined effect of these variables on fertility? To answer that, we need to examine the immigration-fertility linkage directly. In a 2021 report, my colleagues Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler found a negative correlation between the immigrant share of an MSA and the birth rate of native-born women. The relationship was strongest among working-class women living in the 50 largest MSAs, and it persisted when controlling for variables such as the average income and education in each MSA. The analysis is only suggestive, however, because the data set is cross-sectional with a limited set of control variables.
Observing what happens to fertility before and after a sudden immigrant influx could better establish causation. One such influx occurred in Miami in 1980. After Fidel Castro announced that anyone wishing to leave Cuba could do so via the port of Mariel, 125,000 Cuban immigrants came to Miami between April and September of that year. This "Mariel Boatlift” is a kind of natural experiment — albeit limited to one city — that economists have used to investigate the impact of immigration. A 2018 article in the IZA Journal of Development and Migration compares the change in fertility in Miami after the boatlift with trends in fertility in a control city that did not experience an influx.3 The results indicate that, relative to the control city, fertility declined 3.4 percent in Miami between 1980 and 1984. The effect was due to lower fertility among renters rather than homeowners.
Relative to the control, Miami fertility appeared to largely recover by 1988. However, we should not assume that immigration-induced fertility declines are temporary. For one thing, domestic migration as a response to the immigrant influx could disguise the impact. If certain Americans move away from Miami (or decline to move to it) because immigration has made it difficult for them to build a family there, while those who remain experience no fertility drop, then the fertility rate in the city would appear to "recover” — but only because of compositional changes in the population. Furthermore, immigration is a continuous process. Even if the U.S. could absorb a one-time wave of immigration without a long-term change in fertility, the long-term never arrives when every year brings another wave.
Of course, the gain could be greater with more immigration, but the immigrant TFR is simply not large enough to make a dramatic impact. The immigrant share of women of childbearing age already stood at a record high of 15 percent in 2023, and doubling that share would boost the overall TFR to just 1.87.
Reaching the replacement level of 2.1 through immigration would be virtually impossible without reorienting our system toward the few parts of the world that still have high TFRs, such as Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. If imported on a large scale, immigrants from those places may solve the problem of low national TFR — assuming their own fertility does not plummet upon reaching a wealthy country — but their low skill levels and cultural distance from the West would create many new problems as well.
[...]
In fact, recent research suggests that immigration impacts native fertility — positively in part, but mostly negatively — through a variety of mechanisms.
Child Care. One mechanism is cheaper child care. A 2015 article in the IZA Journal of Migration finds higher fertility among college-educated, native-born women when they live in places with higher levels of low-skill immigration. The author theorizes that such immigration has made daycare more affordable for these women by lowering the wage of child care workers. Obviously, this native fertility increase is narrowly focused, and one could speculate — although the paper does not — that the childbearing decisions made by lower-skilled natives who may compete with immigrants for jobs could be affected very differently.
Wages and Employment. Indeed, the literature shows that immigrants tend to put downward pressure on the wages and employment opportunities not only of child care workers, but of all the U.S. workers with whom they compete. A book-length report published in 2017 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine includes a long list of studies demonstrating that relationship. Workers who experience job instability are in turn less likely to have children, as a 2004 article in the Journal of Population Economics points out.
Housing. Another mechanism by which immigration could affect native fertility is housing costs. A robust literature shows that immigration leads to higher rents and house prices. For example, a 2017 study in the Journal of Housing Economics finds that a 1 percent population increase due to immigration in a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is associated with a 0.8 percent increase in rents in that MSA, along with a 1.6 percent increase in surrounding MSAs. For house prices, the increase was again 0.8 percent in the target MSA, but 9.6 percent in surrounding MSAs. The large spillover effects are likely due to native flight from high-immigration areas.
If couples are unable to afford sufficient housing, they may not have as many children as they desire. That is the finding of a 2014 paper appearing in the Journal of Public Economics, which estimated a 2.4 percent decrease in fertility among non-homeowners for every $10,000 increase in home prices. There is a twist, however, in that fertility actually appeared to increase among people who already own their homes, leading to a combined positive effect on fertility of 0.8 percent immediately following a price increase. A more recent study in Labour Economics employs a cross-country analysis in which the combined effect is negative. In either case, the immediate impact of immigration on native fertility is not large, but the positive impact that high earners may enjoy comes at the expense of lower earners.
In assessing the linkage between housing prices and fertility, it is important to distinguish between the immediate impact on fertility and the lifetime impact. When housing prices change, do women merely shift their planned childbearing to a different time, or is their lifetime fertility affected? Although the shift theory is plausible for the established homeowners who have more children when their equity increases, a lifetime impact is more likely for young women still searching for suitable housing. A study published last year in Population Research and Policy Review shows that renters in expensive housing markets tend to delay childbearing, which in turn decreases their expected lifetime fertility. "Even temporary housing unaffordability ... might have long-lasting effects on the age pyramid,” the authors write. A 2009 article in Regional Science and Urban Economics similarly finds that completed fertility is lower in metropolitan areas with high housing costs.
Diversity. Immigration could also affect native fertility by increasing the nation’s ethnic diversity. A new working paper out of Boston College documents a negative association between diversity in a locality and the number of children that residents have.1 The relationship holds across many places and time periods, under a variety of model specifications. It may be due to "homophily”, the statistical tendency for similar people to associate with each other, in that diversity can make finding a same-ethnicity marriage partner more difficult. It may also be due to the broader decline in community engagement that political scientist Robert Putnam observed in diverse areas. In any case, a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the increase in diversity caused by immigration could have lowered native TFR enough to fully negate the impact of immigrants’ higher fertility on the national TFR.2
Combined Effects. The studies cited above show how immigration impacts a particular variable (such as housing costs or diversity) and then shows how that variable impacts fertility. What is the combined effect of these variables on fertility? To answer that, we need to examine the immigration-fertility linkage directly. In a 2021 report, my colleagues Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler found a negative correlation between the immigrant share of an MSA and the birth rate of native-born women. The relationship was strongest among working-class women living in the 50 largest MSAs, and it persisted when controlling for variables such as the average income and education in each MSA. The analysis is only suggestive, however, because the data set is cross-sectional with a limited set of control variables.
Observing what happens to fertility before and after a sudden immigrant influx could better establish causation. One such influx occurred in Miami in 1980. After Fidel Castro announced that anyone wishing to leave Cuba could do so via the port of Mariel, 125,000 Cuban immigrants came to Miami between April and September of that year. This "Mariel Boatlift” is a kind of natural experiment — albeit limited to one city — that economists have used to investigate the impact of immigration. A 2018 article in the IZA Journal of Development and Migration compares the change in fertility in Miami after the boatlift with trends in fertility in a control city that did not experience an influx.3 The results indicate that, relative to the control city, fertility declined 3.4 percent in Miami between 1980 and 1984. The effect was due to lower fertility among renters rather than homeowners.
Relative to the control, Miami fertility appeared to largely recover by 1988. However, we should not assume that immigration-induced fertility declines are temporary. For one thing, domestic migration as a response to the immigrant influx could disguise the impact. If certain Americans move away from Miami (or decline to move to it) because immigration has made it difficult for them to build a family there, while those who remain experience no fertility drop, then the fertility rate in the city would appear to "recover” — but only because of compositional changes in the population. Furthermore, immigration is a continuous process. Even if the U.S. could absorb a one-time wave of immigration without a long-term change in fertility, the long-term never arrives when every year brings another wave.
There are intangibles that are not addressed in this analysis. For instance, there is the decline in hope as America changes into something unrecognizable by the native born. The endless waves of immigrants lead to massive cultural changes that disturb the native born; it's not the world they knew. The end result is they are reluctant to bring children into a world that is in flux. Being able to predict conditions when you raise children is an important consideration.
In short Americans are feeling like strangers in a strange land. If you grew up in, say, Illinois you would be flabbergasted at the dramatic change that has happened in your state. I visited the northern Illinois town of Rockford a number of years ago and was astonished to see it; it appeared like a Mexican border town - on the south side of the Rio Grande. Who wants to raise children when their counttry is turning into an alien nation?
Also, there is the decline of social organizations and institutions that used to offer assistance to the poor or those down on their luck. There used to be multiple resources that were available through groups like the Knights of Columbus or the Optimists or the Rotaries or the Masons. But these groups are all dying and that because of the cultural shift tied to massive immigration. Hondurans don't join these "white boy clubs". Nor do they become members of the traditional American churches, churches which provided a great deal of aid to struggling families.
Fewer resources discourages child rearing.
And to help make Americans more accepting of immigrants we've had the big DEI push, using guilt as a driver to make white Americans ashamed. This too has it's impact as so many younger Americans don't want to "pass on the bad blood" and feel they should die out. Without all this massive immigration DEI would have had a much harder time taking root.
How did the English language come into being? It was an amalgamation of French and the nordic Old English. The Normans were not a huge portion of the population there when they came; but they showed up, took over, made everyone speak French, and allowed a bunch of immigrants to come in. The older peoples of England - the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and especially the old Britons aka Welch, simply melted into the invaders' pot. Their population declines as the incoming settlers increased.
While this was good for those who actually won it, the question remains about how the losers felt about the takeover and loss of their land. There is no England now, except as a geographical location. Would that have happened had the Normans not invaded and crushed the old culture?
But what we are seeing in America is a much, much larger invasion, and by people who are quite different from those who invaded England at the time.
Americans sense they are losing control of our country. While the best thing we could do would be to have more babies, not fewer, the tendency is to have fewer hostages to fate. Nobody wants to be the once-rulers of a nation who become outnumbered and at the mercy of people who now have power over you.
We need to stop ALL immigration to the U.S. and do so for a long time. We did it before, in 1924 (the Johnson-Reed act) through 1965 (the Ted Kennedy sponsored Immigration and Naturalization Act). Throughout that period we had very little immigration and it almost all came from Europe or European-settled countries (like Australia). We've had a fifty year long experiment with largely open borders and now we are facing an existential crisis. Our culture is dying. Who could have predicted that? A lot of people. In fact the Democrats did which is why they pushed it; they wanted to change America and give themselves eternal power.
Time we went back to the Johnson Reed Act.)
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
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