Study: More births among immigrants from Asia in U.S.

Fewer women from Latin America having babies

PHOENIX—Asian immigrant women are increasingly accounting for a larger share of foreign mothers who give birth to children in the U.S., signaling a changing landscape of immigrants in America as Asians continue to outpace Latinos in growth.

The Pew Research Center released new data Wednesday showing that Asian immigrants account for 22 percent of U.S. births by foreign women, up from 16 percent in 2010.

Meanwhile, fewer Latin American immigrants are having babies in the U.S. The study found the share of births from foreign-born mothers from Latin America dropped from 64 percent of foreign mothers in 2008 to 54 percent in 2014. About 7 percent of all births in the U.S. are from immigrants lacking legal status.

The report also found that immigrants are the driving force behind births in the U.S. The number of American women who gave birth in 2014 has dropped 11 percent since 1970, while immigrant women have tripled the number of births they gave.

The report comes amid a heated presidential election in which Republican nominee Donald Trump has garnered support—and drawn ire—by claiming he will build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border and by expressing largely anti-immigrant sentiment.

But demographers say immigrants are key to growth in the U.S. Fewer American women are having children, while immigrant women have disproportionately high birth rates compared to their U.S.-born counterparts. Women from sub-Saharan Africa have the highest annual fertility, with 106.4 births per 1,000 women, according to the Pew study. The rate for Latin American women is 80.6 per 1,000, accounting for over half of births to immigrant mothers in the U.S.

“We in the United States have been and are going to be dependent on immigrants and the children of immigrants in the growth of our population,” said William Frey, a senior fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. “I think this adds to that in that the immigrant population of women is helping move that along.”

Frey says that if it weren’t for immigrants, the country’s birth rate would be much lower, which could result in future problems as the current population ages.

Demographers say a low birth rate can result in a deficit in the labor force and strained social security and social welfare programs, among other economic problems.