Geburtenbarometer Vienna: Analysing fertility convergence between Vienna and Austria

Geburtenbarometer Vienna aims to provide an up-to-date monitoring of fertility in Vienna, based on a set of annual and quarterly indicators of fertility rates and regularly published summary reports. This paper gives an overview of the data, methods and indicators used and contrasts main results with the data for other Austrian regions and for the whole country. Throughout much of the 20th century, Vienna recorded fertility rates deep below those in other parts of Austria. Because fertility in Vienna differs markedly between Austrian-born and foreign-born women, our study looks at these fertility differentials and their influence on the overall fertility patterns for Vienna and Austria. Migrant women in Vienna not only had a rapidly increasing share on total births since the mid-1980s and thus contributed to a gradual increase in the absolute number of births in the city, but their higher fertility has also helped to push period fertility rates in Vienna towards the levels recorded in other regions of Austria. Our study brings to light the distinct population dynamics in Vienna, where high childlessness and low fertility are combined with a positive balance between births and deaths and sustained population growth and where the population trends are strongly influenced by the direct and indirect effects of migration.