The contribution of mothers of foreign nationality to the recent recovery of period fertility in Flanders (Belgium)

Lisa Van Landschoot, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Jan Van Bavel, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Helga A. G. de Valk, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) and Vrije Universiteit Brussel

After decades of decline, period total fertility has been recovering in Europe since the early 21st century. In the literature, two main explanations are given for this: the end, or slowing down, of the postponement of parenthood and the contribution of migrant populations to the birth rate. This paper addresses the latter issue and investigates to what extent mothers of foreign nationality contributed to the recent recovery of period fertility in Flanders (Belgium). We use data collected by an official Family and Child Care Agency to calculate the nominators of age-specific fertility rates for different groups of nationality. Since we lack data that are perfectly equivalent for the denominators, we propose a method to indirectly assess the impact of births to foreign women on age specific and total fertility. Our first results indicate that total fertility in Flanders would have been about one tenth of a child lower without women of foreign nationality. Women who had foreign nationality at birth but who acquired Belgian nationality later on, also have a limited positive impact on total fertility. Still, the recent recovery is mainly due to the end of postponement in the native Belgian population.