Fertility of national and foreign citizens, in Portugal, 1995-2008 – a comparative study

Maria Mendes, University of Evora
Maria Magalhaes, University of Évora
Joana Malta, Statistics Portugal

Since the beginning of the 80’s, the Total Fertility Rate in Portugal has dropped below 2.1 children per women, reaching unprecedented low levels in the last few years (1.3 in 2007). At the same time, the foreign population with a legal status of residence in Portugal has increased. Despite the trend of low levels of fertility in recent years, data on fertility broken down by parents’ citizenship appears to highlight an emerging growth contribution of foreign population to fertility rates in Portugal, a fact that can be related to the aforementioned increase in the population of foreign citizens: In 2008, around 12% of the total of live births has at least one of the parents with foreign citizenship. We intend to present a study focusing the fertility of foreign citizens in Portugal, specifically its contribution to the total fertility rate in recent years, i.e., the period from 1995 until the most recent data available (2008). Moreover, it is also our goal to conduct a comparison of fertility indicators for national and foreign citizens, and, when possible, to break down this analysis by the most significant nationalities of foreign citizens.