American Fertility Patterns: A Comparison of White and Nonwhite Cohorts Born 1903-56

In the United States, nonwhite women have long had higher fertility than white women (Farley, 1966, 1970, 1972; Ryder and Westoff, 1971; Westoff and Ryder, 1977), although in recent years nonwhite fertility has been converging toward the lower level characteristic of whites (Rindfuss and Sweet, 1977; Cutright and Shorter, 1979). Further, the pace of fertility tends to be faster for nonwhite women than for whites (Farley, 1970; Presser, 1971; St. John, 1982). Yet, the strong decline in the level of nonwhite fertility has occurred despite very high adolescent fertility (Cherlin, 1981; Kitagawa, 1981; O'Connell and Moore, 1980). This last trend is particularly intriguing because it differs sharply from the strong association between fertility postponement and fertility reduction that has characterized most European societies. This paper sets out to refocus attention on the general pattern of racial differences in cohort fertility and to provide data that will facilitate future systematic hypothesis-testing. Following Ryder (1969), I will examine the mean of the distribution of fertility by age (hereafter called the mean age at fertility), the standard deviation of this distribution, the total fertility rate, the proportion ever having a child, and mean completed parity of mothers. These data can be used to conduct future research into the effects of socioeconomic change and of patterns of marriage and formation of sexual unions on fertility. In addition, current fertility patterns are viewed in historical perspective using exactly comparable data over time. Examining fertility patterns by race has several compelling advantages. First, nonwhites and whites have typically had different fertility patterns, but have shared some intertemporal changes: the baby boom and subsequent bust occur in both groups at about the same time. Examining the two groups enables one to see variety within a common phenomenon, and may provide insight