High fertility among Indochinese refugees

From 1975 to 1988, nearly 900,000 Indochinese refugees were resettled in the United States. This paper examines patterns of fertility among these refugees from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam who have exhibited high levels of reproduction since their arrival. Data are drawn from sample surveys in San Diego and San Francisco, CA. Fertility levels were found to exceed five children per ever-married woman, a level that is consistent with perceptions of ideal family size in the homeland. Fertility levels were significantly higher among rural second-wave refugees than in the more urban first-wave groups. One explanation for the high fertility is that couples have migrated from areas where fertility is high, and they have not yet adapted their reproductive behavior to the low fertility environment of the United States. This possibility is reinforced by a general gender preference for boys and exacerbated by the fact that, while a majority of women are aware of methods of fertility control, access is still limited by cultural and financial barriers, and the motivation to use family planning still appears to be relatively low. The data suggest that this refugee population will continue to put pressure on maternal and child health resources, and that continued residence in the United States could lead to desires to limit family size, thus increasing demand for methods of fertility control.