Fertility of Immigrants: A Two-Generational Approach in Germany

In 2007, population growth in Europe (EU-27) amounted to 2.6 million persons, comprising a net increase of 2.1 million persons resulting from migra-tion and an increase of 0.5 million due to natural growth (Eurostat 2010). The limited share of natural increase in population growth is related to Europe’s fertility rates being persistently low in recent years (ranging from 1.45 in 2002 to 1.55 in 2007). As a result, net migration has become the main factor driving population change in the EU-27 over the last decade, particularly since 2002 when net migration rose to levels around 1.8 million from 0.6 million in 2001 (Eurostat 2010). Apart from this direct effect on population growth, however, migration may have an important indirect effect by affecting fertility levels in both the short (fertility of first generation immigrants) and long run (fertility of 1.5 and second generations). Unfortunately, these short and long-term effects of migration on fertility are often difficult to document, because vital statistics on births and fertility routinely consider current nationality, whereas a substan-tial number of first- and, particularly, second-generation immigrants eventuall