Latinas Like Makin’ the Babies

A recent Census report confirms what my tías have been telling me for years:  These really ARE childbearing hips!

The report, “Fertility of American Women:  2008,” details female fertility in the U.S. from 2007-2008 and finds that about 28% percent of women are shacking up — which is to say — they don’t enter into legal matrimony to their spouses, are separated or married with an absentee spouse.  Four million women from ages 15-44 gave birth during this time period and most women average about two children by the time they hit 44.

Now to the colloquial knowledge:  Latinas love makin’ babies!  The Census reported that Latinas and African-American women had higher fertility levels than whites or Asians.

Then, 20% of women who gave birth during this time period were foreign born (895,000) and most of them (654,000) were not citizens; one-quarter of these women were in California.  Foreign-born, non-citizens had the highest fertility rates among Latinas — but there’s a caveat.

Lucky for Latinas like me, of the second-career-before-I’m-30 variety, for educated women fertility rates increase with age.  Although women in their 20s peak as baby factories, women who continue their education into their 20s (tías, can you hear me?) have higher fertility once they complete their educations.  So, if I can get around that whole no-educated-Latinos issue, we should be pumping out babies soon y’all!