Interracial unions and fertility in Brazil: Are there differences when couples are racially mixed?

In this paper we assume a relational perspective (based on Bourdieu's idea of habitus) on couple's fertility decision. We assume that the couple's number of children is an outcome of an interaction process based on each partners' habitus. Desires, expectations, and incorporated/embedded social practices are daily negotiated and the fertility strategies are formed within the union. Interracial unions are unique interactions because they make possible the negotiation between individuals with distinct habitus in terms of family formation and, consequently, fertility strategies, which may become different from their social origins when negotiated with his/her spouse.

Comparing the number of children between interracial and same race coupes, using Brazilian Census data for the year 2000, we found that mixed race couples have different fertility from same race couples. More important, they have fertility in between the two racial groups of the spouses, this result indicates that these couples have an innovative reproductive behavior, in which each spouse contributes with about 50% on the decision process . Considering the potential asymmetry between the racial groups,  the results show that the darker partner has a slightly lower decision power on fertility, after controlling for women’s education.

In this article, we propose an innovative theoretical approach for couple's fertility decisions. We understand fertility as a result of adaptative strategies (assimilation or innovation), resistance (or rupture), or selectivity process in terms of interracial couples formation process. This framework, usually used for analyzing changes in fertility strategies of migrant women, seems to be useful for a better understanding of fertility behavior of interracial couples.