The biocultural pattern of Japanese‐American fertility

Abstract

A comparison of age‐specific fertility data on second‐generation Japanese‐American women with published data on modern and premodern women in Japan and with data on modern U.S. white women shows the persistence of a fertility pattern among all Japanese groups. This pattern is significantly different from that of U.S. whites. It appears that continuity in certain family and kinship elements has played a central role in the persistence of this pattern. In addition, it is suggested that the introduction of modern contraceptive techniques may have the consequence of merely intensifying a cultural pattern of fertility, rather than changing its basic outlines.