Immigrant and Native Fertility 2008 to 2017
By Steven A. Camarota and Karen Zeigler on March 14, 2019
Steven A. Camarota is the director of research and Karen Zeigler is a demographer at the Center.
In June 2013, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said "Immigrants are more fertile." He and many others have argued for large-scale immigration on the grounds that America's aging society needs immigrants and their higher fertility to, in Bush's words, "rebuild the demographic pyramid." However, demographers have generally found that, although immigration can significantly increase the overall size of a nation's population, its impact on slowing the aging of American society is very limited. To the extent that immigration can impact aging, it is partly due to immigrants' higher fertility. However, immigrant fertility has declined significantly since 2008, as has the fertility of the native-born. Immigrant fertility has declined more steeply than that of natives; as a result, immigration's small impact on the overall fertility rate has become more modest.
https://cis.org/Report/Immigrant-and-Native-Fertility-2008-2017
