Hispanic Family Facts: Hispanic women are helping drive the recent decline in the U.S. fertility rate

The decline in the Hispanic fertility rate is helping to drive a major shift in the country’s fertility patterns, shows a newly released compilation of fertility data by Center researcher Marta Alvira-Hammond, covered today in the New York Times. Between 2006 and 2017, the Hispanic fertility rate fell by 31 percent, compared with just 5 percent for white women and 11 percent for black women.

The especially large decline among Hispanic women is likely driven, in part, by recent changes in the composition of the U.S. Hispanic population. The share of U.S. Latinos who are immigrants (i.e., foreign-born) is getting smaller, and foreign-born Hispanic women generally have higher fertility than U.S.-born Hispanic women.

Continued fertility declines among Hispanics will help push the total fertility rate in the U.S. even further below replacement level.