The Fertility of Female Immigrants to Europe from Christian and Muslim Countries

Abstract

This article investigates the fertility of female immigrants to Europe in relation to the characteristics of individual women (n=1,667), their countries of origin in Africa, Asia and Latin-America (n=68) and the European country where they reside (n=22), using the European Social Survey (ESS) collected between 2010 and 2017 (rounds 5 to 8). Many immigrants have fertility outcomes that converge towards the native fertility of their country of residence in Europe, a surprisingly strong factor. Immigrants from Muslim countries have higher fertility, though, and they compress their fertility over fewer years than immigrants from Christian countries. Multivariate estimates indicate that the effects of fertility rates and religious composition of countries of origin and individual religiousness are of similar magnitude for post-migration fertility rates. The highest fertility outcomes are found among highly religious immigrants from Muslim countries migrating to relatively high fertility countries in Europe at an early fertile age.