Study finds differences in childbearing between racial/ethnic groups across educational levels

Study finds differences in childbearing between racial/ethnic groups across educational levels

College-educated black women in the United States give birth to fewer children than their white and Hispanic counterparts, according to a new study co-authored by Yale sociologist Emma Zang.

The study, published in the journal Population Studies, examines the interaction of race, ethnicity and education in shaping the fertility levels of U.S. women born between 1960 and 1980. She also showed that black and Hispanic women without a college degree or less than high-school education have more births than similarly educated white women. Among college graduates, Hispanic women had the highest fertility compared to college-educated black and white women.

“Conventional wisdom holds that racial or ethnic inequalities in fertility disappear once women in minority groups reach similar levels of education and socioeconomic status as white women, but we find that gaps appear at all levels of education,” said Zang, an assistant professor of sociology in the Yale Department of Humanities and lead author of the study. “In general, highly educated women have fewer children than less educated women, but that does not explain the differences we found among college-educated women.

“Our results highlight the need to examine differences in childbearing among both socioeconomically advantaged women and those with fewer financial resources.”

Unlike previous research on race and fertility in the United States, which has typically focused exclusively on black and white women, this new study included Hispanic women, who represent an ethnic group that makes up at least 19% of the U.S. population, according to the Census Bureau.

For the research, Zang and co-authors Chloe Sariego, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology, and Anirudh Krishnan of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab analyzed four waves of longitudinal data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) from 2006 to 2017 with a nationally representative sample of 11,117 women. They calculated the average number of children that women of each racial/ethnic group and education level would have over the course of their reproductive years. Additionally, they analyzed the proportion of women from each group who gave birth to one, two or three children.

Overall, they found that women with college degrees have fewer children than women without college degrees, regardless of racial and ethnic group. The difference in fertility between black and white college-educated women is largely due to the lower proportion of black mothers who give birth to a second child, the study found. A high proportion of both groups have one child, but the share of college-educated black mothers who had a second child was more than 10 percentage points lower than that of white mothers, the study showed. About 80% of college-educated white women had a second child, while fewer than 70% of similarly educated black women had a second child.

One possible explanation for lower fertility among college-educated black women is that they delayed having their first child for so long that they lacked time to have additional children during their reproductive years. However, the study found little evidence that the timing at which women decide to have children causes differences between racial/ethnic groups across educational levels.

Previous studies have posited possible reasons why black and Hispanic women without college degrees have higher fertility than their white counterparts, Zang said. For example, religious beliefs and lack of access to health insurance could influence how less educated black and Hispanic women use contraceptives. Because of structural racism, Black and Hispanic women without college degrees are also more likely to experience relationship and economic instability than their white counterparts, she explained.

The new study raises several questions about racial differences in fertility among college-educated women that need to be further investigated, Zang said.

Are the differences in fertility the result of highly educated black and Hispanic women being more aware of the higher risk of pregnancy-related complications in their racial groups, such as miscarriage, infant mortality, and maternal mortality? Are they the result of college-educated Black and Hispanic women having to navigate spaces, including white-dominated workplaces, more often than less-educated Black and Hispanic women, making them wary of confirming the stereotype that they are highly fertile? Do they exist because college-educated black and Hispanic women who wanted a second child were prevented from having one due to health problems caused by chronic long-term stress related to racism?

Emma Zang, Yale sociologist

The study's results show that, compared to white children, a larger proportion of black and, to a lesser extent, Hispanic children are born to mothers with less education and a smaller proportion are born to mothers with college degrees, Zang said.

“Highly educated mothers tend to have more resources to support their children’s development and their chances of success in life,” she said. “That means Black and Hispanic children are disproportionately born into families with fewer resources compared to white children, which could exacerbate income and health inequality in the next generation.”

Source:

Yale University

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