The Influence of Migration, Education, and Parents on the Fertility of First-Generation Japanese Women in the U.S.

This study examines fertility of Japanese women who migrated to the United States (U.S.) in the early 1900s. It uses data originally collected from 98 first-generation Japanese immigrants, addressed as Issei, living in Seattle, Washington in the mid 1970s. Main questions are 1) how Issei women's fertility differed based on their levels of educational attainment, and 2) how the natal family fertility influence differed according to their levels of education. The study findings indicate that highly educated women (more than high-school level) had significantly fewer children than other women with lower educational attainment. This finding may relate in part to the levels of education that they had their children obtain. Interestingly, there is no indication that the fertility of these Issei women was positively influenced by the number of children that their natal parents had regardless of their educational levels; on the contrary, the fertility of women who had a high-school level of education was negatively related to their natal family fertility. Several possible factors may be responsible for these patterns, including experience with child-death, reaction to the realities of their immigrant parents, assimilation into society in the U.S., and occupational and regional backgrounds of their natal family.