How Minority Status Affects Fertility

The history of Asian immigrants in Canada is more than a century old, and the number of persons of Asian descent has more than doubled over the past fifteen years, yet until now there has been no systematic study of these Asian-born Canadians. Using specifically obtained demographic data from Statistics Canada, Shiva S. Halli has investigated differences in family size among Asian ethnic groups in Canada in order to examine inter-group differences and to pinpoint causes for such variations. The author examines the context of fertility differentials by looking at social, cultural, and historical backgrounds, and attempts to utilize the minority status hypothesis, which was originally applied to ethnic groups in the United States, to explain differences in Asian ethnic fertility in Canada.