Fertility of immigrant groups in Denmark by generation

It’s somewhat of an alt right myth that immigrant groups come into the country, and then continuously outbreed the original population even if no more immigration happens. While this maybe have happened historically, it does not generally happen in Western countries because the immigrant groups quickly reduce their fertility levels to the level of the host country (demographic transition). Some years ago, I was curious about this fear, so I obtained some Danish data from directly from Danish Statistics (gov stats body). They are shown below, by generation. I left the names in Danish, but they are pretty readable (I added a new pointers in [brackets]). I included only those with at least 10 births in the period to avoid excessive sampling error, and I lined up the countries that match across generations. The correlation between the fertility rates is .57 (n = 15). Original Danish file. These data cover years 2008-2012 (average).

First generation     Second generation    
Origin Births Fertility rate Origin Births Fertility rate
Tyrkiet 681 2,073 Tyrkiet 398 1,679
Polen 501 1,635 Polen 34 1,683
Irak 459 2,248      
Somalia 409 3,531      
Libanon 347 2,553 Libanon 81 1,542
Pakistan 302 2,732 Pakistan 171 1,772
Tyskland [Germany]
300 1,486 Tyskland 20 1,616
Norge 266 1,713 Norge 15 1,596
Bosnien-Hercegovina 258 1,529      
Afghanistan 243 2,506      
Thailand 242 1,562      
Sverige 239 1,826 Sverige 16 1,445
Vietnam 226 1,989 Vietnam 18 1,050
Island 210 2,112 Island 10 2,201
Filippinerne 201 1,050      
Kina 195 1,372      
Ukraine 183 1,693      
Litauen 164 1,567      
Rumænien 153 1,317      
Rusland 148 1,737      
Iran 143 1,290      
Marokko 143 2,861 Marokko 64 1,993
Sri Lanka 135 1,744      
Jugoslavien (eks.) 130 1,763 Jugoslavien (eks.) 94 1,783
Storbritannien [Great Britain]
100 1,762 Storbritannien 12 1,898
Indien 90 1,444 Indien 14 1,445
USA 84 1,396      
Syrien 82 3,073      
Letland 81 1,444      
Nederlandene 77 2,027      
Brasilien 73 1,559      
Makedonien 64 2,050 Makedonien 15 2,166
Frankrig 60 1,450      
Bulgarien 53 1,280      
Myanmar (tidl. Burma) 53 3,458      
Finland 51 1,485      
Spanien 43 1,088      
Ghana 41 2,191      
Jugoslavien. Forb. Rep. 38 2,285      
Kuwait 37 2,937      
Ungarn 34 1,123      
Estland 33 1,605      
Uganda 33 1,655      
Nigeria 32 2,972      
Peru 31 1,972      
Canada 30 1,511      
Italien 29 941      
Jordan 27 3,228 Jordan 23 2,721
Japan 26 1,114      
Indonesien 25 1,706      
Congo. Demokratiske Republik 22 3,421      
Nepal 22 1,221      
Etiopien 22 2,117      
Hviderusland [Belarus]
22 1,655      
Kenya 22 1,449      
Kosovo 22 3,353      
Mexico 21 1,451      
Australien 21 1,564      
Serbien og Montenegro 21 1,852      
Serbien 20 2,856      
Israel 20 2,370      
Egypten 20 2,417      
Tanzania 19 1,932      
Tjekkiet 19 1,279      
Burundi 19 2,530      
Cameroun 19 2,343      
Bangladesh 19 2,617      
Tunesien 19 2,815      
Congo 18 3,005      
Slovakiet 18 1,214      
Argentina 17 1,966      
Sudan 17 2,805      
Chile 16 1,578      
Algeriet 16 2,814      
Belgien 16 1,592      
Sydafrika 15 1,980      
Elfenbenskysten [Ivory coast]
15 3,351      
Venezuela 15 2,010      
Colombia 15 1,176      
Østrig [Austria]
14 1,432      
Zambia 13 2,198      
Irland 13 1,446      
Cuba 13 2,070      
Statsløs 13 2,492      
Gambia 12 1,778      
Schweiz 12 1,192      
Portugal 12 981      
Mellemøsten uoplyst [unknown middle east]
11 3,414      
Moldova 11 2,093      
Malaysia 11 1,371      
Armenien 11 1,632      
Sovjetunionen (eks.) 11 1,613      
Usbekistan 11 3,108      
Kroatien 10 1,744      
Sierra Leone 10 2,911    

 

If one avoids breaking down by country, one can also get some neat longitudinal data that gives useful perspective with updated data (FERT1 table).

So, current ‘Danish origin’ (some partial foreigners in this group) fertility sits at ~1.8, which is good by comparison with developed countries in general. It can be seen that non-western 1st generations had a large decline since the 1980s and now roughly matches the other groups, though with a slight increase since 2012 or so. Immigrant women from western countries do not have many offspring. These probably represent a lot of power women who come to Denmark to work, and then neglect family life. 2nd generation non-westerns do not have particularly high fertility. This is surprising considering the relative low IQ of this group (85-90), and the known relationship between lower IQ and fertility (r = -.11 according to recent meta-analysis). In this case, the group level factors seem to overwhelm the expectation based on the individual level differences.

This Post Has One Comment

  1. Draykoh Dracho

    Could the 2nd generation figures be misleading due to the tempo effect problem in TFR? That if they have children at an older age the TFR calculation is thrown and can in the short term make the reduction in fertility look larger than it really is?

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