Decomposing the Black/White Fertility Differential.

Previous research on fertility in the US indicates that at low levels of education blacks have more children than whites while among women with college educations race is unrelated to number of children. This analysis moves beyond the previous studies by considering the contributions to the race by education interaction of 4 components of the fertility process: the likelihood of being childless age at 1st birth length of birth intervals and age at termination of childbearing. Data analyzed is from Cycle II of the National Survey of Family Growth. The survey sampled women in their childbearing years controlling for age and other personal and background characteristics. At any age blacks were less likely to have children regardless of education. Black women of all educational levels tend to have their 1st child at a younger age than white women do. In general higher fertility among black women can also be traced to spacing children closer together and having children at later ages than white women. However black women with college degrees space their children farther apart or end childbearing at an earlier age than white women with college degrees which offsets the 1st variable of initiatiing childbearing at an earlier age. The overall tendency for educated blacks and whites to have similar levels of fertility does not come from identical combinations of the fertility process variables. Future research should adress residential patterns influencing the socioeconomic composition of female adolescent peer groups as well as differences in career continuity among black and white women.