Untangling Structural and Normative Aspects of the Monority Status-Fertility Hypothesis

Abstract

Since the residual differential fertility of racial and ethnic minorities can be explained in theoretically opposed ways, effects due to subcultural norms can be established only by direct measurement. Data from a recent survey of Los Angeles Chicano couples indicate that ethnic integration is actually associated with reduced fertility, suggesting that the structural negative minority-status effect on fertility hypothesized by Goldscheider and Uhlenberg operates even within a high fertility minority and contradicting their suggestion that high minority fertility is due to subcultural norms.