FERTILITY EXPECTATIONS AND BEHAVIOR AMONG MEXICAN AMERICANS IN LOS ANGELES, 1973-82

A 1982 follow-up survey located an unexpectedly high 70 percent of a probability sample of Mexican American women initially interviewed in Los Angeles in 1973. As compared to the 1975 follow-up of the National Fertility Study, these women have a higher aggregate and individual inconsistency between fertility expectatbns and behavior. Expectations were more predictive of the behavior of women reared in the United States than of those reared in Mexico. Except for duration of marriage, these expectations had more predictive power than a number of demographic and socioeconomic variables.