1. 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

2. 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

3. 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)

4. 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

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

11. Table 1 Fertility Rates, U.S. 2007 AgeTotal U.S.Native BornForeign Born Current Year Migrants 0 to 5 Years in U.S. 15-190.0280.0270.0390.0220.037 20-240.0920.0890.1090.0470.091 25-290.1180.1140.1340.0620.125 30-340.1020.0960.1210.0570.112 35-390.0550.0500.0750.0470.081 40-440.0160.0140.0240.0210.029 45-490.004 0.0050.0150.008 50-540.001 0.0000.007 Total Fertility Rate 2.071.972.541.352.45 Source: Author’s computations using data from American Community Survey, http://usa.ipums.org/usa/

12. 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

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