Melting pot or mixed salad? Exploring assimilation and maintenance of fertility behavior of first and subsequent generation Central American women living in the United States

Kathryn Grace, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Stuart H. Sweeney, University of California, Santa Barbara

The purpose of this research is to examine the fertility behaviors of Central American immigrants and their descendants living in Los Angeles County. Two important features of this work are careful attention to the foreign-born women's duration of exposure to place-based determinants of fertility, and the development of multi-level hazard models that reflect the complexity of the fertility adaptation process. Comparing fertility rates and determinants of three categorizations of L.A. County residents: Central American-born women, California-born women of Central American descent and the California native-born population (not of Central American descent), will enhance scientific understanding of immigrant assimilation and cultural maintenance as expressed through fertility behavior. The planned research will advance conceptual, measurement, and modeling issues of fertility analysis.