Denmark: Immigrant population forecast halved

A new population forecast shows that birth rates among immigrant women have dropped so low that population forecasts need to be changed Birth rates among immigrant women have dropped so much that predictions of the number of second and third generation Danes have been changed, according to new calculations by the independent Dream Institute.

In 1980 immigrant women gave birth to an average of four children. Today, the number has fallen to 2.4 children.

'It was very surprising that the birth frequency among immigrants from lesser developed country was so low,' said Lars Haagen Pedersen, a researcher with the Dream Institute, to daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

The fall in proportion is due to the older age of women immigrating to the country. There are also fewer immigrants from the lesser developed countries where large families are the norm, reported Jyllands-Posten.

The drop in numbers will have a drastic impact on the ethnic composition of Denmark in the long term, said Pedersen.

Compared to the last population forecast in 2004, the predicted number of immigrants and their descendants has almost halved from 15.3 percent. The lower birth rate means that immigrants and their descendants from countries like Turkey, Somalia, Lebanon and Iraq will constitute just under eight percent of Denmark's population in 2080.

Source: Jyllands Posten (English)

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