Fertility of Turkish and Moroccan women in the Netherlands: Adjustment to native level within one generation

The annual figures on the fertility of Turkish and Moroccan women show that the sharp decline that took place up to the mid nineties was reduced or stagnated. In this paper we use cohort data by generation for the main population groups of non-western origin to show that the first generation only adjusted their fertility slowly to that of the native Dutch women. The first generation of Turkish and Moroccan women even has higher fertility rates than the women in their countries of origin. The realised fertility rate of the second generation, on the other hand, is virtually the same as that of the native Dutch women. Turkish and Moroccan women in their early thirties even have fewer children than native Dutch women that age. Their position is no longer in between the first generation and the native Dutch women, but fertility-wise they are more like the native Dutch than like their mothers.