Fertility of Turkish and Moroccan women in the Netherlands: second generation are much closer to native women than to their mothers

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. These women of the first generation show comparable (Turkish women) or even higher (Moroccan women) fertility rates than the women in their countries of origin and few signs of assimilation in (fertility) behaviour.
The second generation, on the other hand, are much closer to native women in this respect than to their mothers. Turkish and Moroccan women in their early thirties have almost the same number of children than native Dutch women that age. Adjustment to the native Dutch fertility pattern is caused by intergenerational differences, rather than by cultural assimilation of the first generation.