Effects of Immigration on Age Structure and Fertility of the U.S. David Pieper Departments of Geography, University of California, Berkeley, & Social Sciences, City College of San Francisco APPAM Conference Maastricht 19 Feb 2010

Background  U.S. has more immigrants than any other country  13% of population was born outside the country  Age structure and fertility effects on social security, labor markets, etc.  Conventional wisdom

Conventional Wisdom  “International migration does not play a major role in the demography of aging”  “Immigrants themselves age”  “Initial labor migration often becomes family migration”  (National Research Council 2001: 44)  Over half of U.S. residents surveyed believe immigrants make up 25% or more of the population (vs. actual figure of about half that) (Massey 2007)

Stock vs Flow  Stock of immigrants is the existing population living in the U.S.  Flow is the stream of new immigrants arriving each year  The stock ages each year, but they also have children  The flow has very different characteristics than the stock

Data and Methods  American Community Survey 2007 Large sample size Individual micro data

Table 1 Fertility Rates, U.S AgeTotal U.S.Native BornForeign Born Current Year Migrants 0 to 5 Years in U.S Total Fertility Rate Source: Author’s computations using data from American Community Survey,

Conclusions  Immigrants more likely to be young adults  Public perceptions or misperceptions about the number of immigrants may come from age structure and fertility patterns  Immigrants have higher fertility U.S. population is growing due to both immigration itself and higher fertility among immigrants  Flow and stock of immigrants differ

Future Research  Trends over time  Patterns over space  Country of origin  Ethnicity  Socioeconomic variables  Comparisons to other countries