Immigration policy climate and contraceptive use among Mexican-origin women in the United States: Support for the “spill-over” hypothesis

Abstract

Objectives

This study aimed to examine the association between state-level Immigration Policy Climate (IPC) and the use of most or moderately effective contraceptive methods among US-born White, US-born Mexican-origin, and foreign-born Mexican-origin women.

Study design

We linked nationally representative survey data from three waves of the National Survey of Family Growth (2013–2019) with a novel and dynamic state-level measure of IPC. We compared the use of a most or moderately effective contraceptive method at the time of the survey among the three ethnicity and nativity groups alone and as an interaction with state IPC index score above or below the national mean in the year of the survey. We used multivariable logistic regression to adjust for individual- and state-level characteristics and test for heterogeneity of the effect of IPC.

Results

Weighted study sample included 31,528,602 respondents: 26,029,129 (82.5%; unweighted n = 5441) non-Latina White, 2,958,960 (9.4%; unweighted n = 971) US-born Mexican-origin, and 2,540,513 (8.1%; unweighted n = 719) foreign-born Mexican-origin. After adjusting for confounders, living in a state with a more inclusive immigration policy environment was associated with higher use of moderately or most effective contraception among Mexican-origin respondents, both US- (59.8% vs 52.2% less inclusive) and foreign-born (62.1% vs 55.9% less inclusive), but not US-born White (65.2% vs 67.8% less inclusive) respondents.

Conclusions

Our results support the “spillover” hypothesis; more exclusionary immigration policies were associated with lower utilization of effective contraceptive methods among both US-born Mexican-origin and Mexican immigrant women.

Implications

Mexican-origin women in states with more inclusive immigration policies are more likely to use effective contraception than those in states with exclusionary policies; this suggests that immigration policy climate may “spill over” into US-born Mexican-origin populations.