25.10.2012: Office for National Statistics: Release: Childbearing of UK and non-UK born women living in the UK, 2011. 25 October 2012
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Release: Childbearing of UK and non-UK born women living in the UK, 2011
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/fertility-analysis/childbearing-of-uk-and-non-uk-born-women-living-in-the-uk/2011/index.html
Poland is the most common non-UK maternal country of birth in the UK, with around 23 thousand births in 2011. It is the most common in each of the four UK countries and in London, reflecting the wide geographical distribution of women born in Poland.
Video summary : Childbearing of UK and non-UK born women living in the UK
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/fertility-analysis/childbearing-of-uk-and-non-uk-born-women-living-in-the-uk/2011/video-summary.html
Childbearing among UK born and non-UK born women living in the UK
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/fertility-analysis/childbearing-of-uk-and-non-uk-born-women-living-in-the-uk/2011/childbearing-among-uk-born-and-non-uk-born-women-living-in-the-uk.html
Childbearing among UK born and non-UK born women living in the UK
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_283876.pdf
Figure 9 shows how the top five maternal countries of birth have only seen a slight reordering since
2007. Pakistan was the most common maternal country of birth in 2007, with 18,300 births, followed
by Poland with 13,300 births. Over time this difference has narrowed, until in 2009 Poland moved up
into first position. In 2010 women born in Poland increased their lead, and by 2011 had 3,800 more
births than women born in Pakistan. Other countries in the top five did not change position, despite a
rise in the number of births to women born in India and Nigeria and a decline in the number of births
to women born in Bangladesh.
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With the exception of Poland, the overseas maternal countries of birth show similar age distributions
with no substantial differences being apparent.
The age distribution of women of childbearing age born in Poland is distinctly different to that of the
other countries of birth (Figure 12). Women born in Poland but living in the UK are noticeably more
concentrated in the 25 to 29 age group, with much smaller proportions in the oldest two age groups.
This reflects the recent (post 2004) migration of Polish people of working age to seek employment
in the UK following EU enlargement [2] . Figure 13 shows that this high peak of Polish born women
aged 25 to 29 has developed since 2007, with the population in this age group doubling from 48,000
in 2007 to 96,000 by 2011. This age group now represents approximately 38 per cent of the female
population of childbearing age who were born in Poland. A significant rise of nearly two thirds has
also been seen in the number of women born in Poland, aged 30 to 34 and living in the UK over this
period.
The GFR for women born in Poland rose from 93 births per 1000 women in 2007 to 106 births per
1000 women in 2010, but then declined back to 93 in 2011 because of a large increase in the female
population of childbearing age who were born in Poland. The recent changes in the age profile of
these women (Figure 13) suggest that their changing GFR may be more the result of changes in the
size of different age groups, rather than these women bearing more or fewer children on average.
Poland, Pakistan and India have been the most common countries of birth for non-UK born mothers
in the UK during the period 2007 to 2011. General fertility rates (GFRs) for women born in these
three countries show that the fertility of women born in Pakistan was significantly higher in both 2007
and 2011 than the fertility of women born in India or Poland. All three countries had higher fertility
using this measure than UK born women.
The GFR is more robust than the total fertility rate (TFR) when analysing individual country of birth
data but has limitations as it is affected by differences in age structures between populations. This
is illustrated in the case of women born in Poland whose high GFR relative to UK born women may
reflect the high proportion of Polish-born women living in the UK who are aged 25-29, rather than a
genuine difference in fertility.
The geographical distribution of births varies according to mothers’ country of birth. For example,
while the number of births in London is similar for women born in Poland and Nigeria, the proportion
of the total births they constitute for that country of birth is not. Births in London represent only 21
and 23 per cent of total births to women born in Pakistan and Poland respectively in 2011, but 60 per
cent of births to women born in Nigeria. So births to women born in Nigeria are highly concentrated
in London, but there are many more births to women born in Poland or Pakistan in the rest of
England than in London.
The age distributions in London (Figure 32) appear similar to the UK distributions for the same
countries of birth (Figure 12). However it is possible to see some differences, for example the
population born in Poland and living in London is much more evenly distributed between the 25 to 29
and 30 to 34 age groups than at the UK level where a large peak can be seen solely in the 25 to 29
age group.
This difference in the age structure does not appear to have had a large effect on the GFR, though
the GFR for women born in Poland and living in London is slightly higher than the UK GFR for the
same group. The greater proportion of women in the 30 to 34 age group, where both UK born and
non-UK born ASFRs are typically highest, could explain the difference in GFR between London and
UK for women born in Poland [2].
Poland, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Nigeria were the five most common countries of birth of
non-UK born mothers giving birth in the UK in 2011. General fertility rates (GFRs) for the UK show
that women born in Pakistan and Nigeria had the highest fertility in 2011, followed by those born in
Bangladesh, then India and then Poland. The finding that women born in Poland had a similar level
of fertility to those born in India and higher fertility than UK born women may be initially surprising,
given the low fertility in Poland itself [3]. However this can be explained by the younger age structure
of the population born in Poland (which the general fertility rate does not control for) and by timing
effects, given that the majority of those born in Poland will have been people of young working
age who have migrated to the UK since EU accession in 2004. It does not indicate that women
born in Poland are having larger families than the UK born, as annual measures of fertility are poor
measures of completed family size for either UK born or foreign born women.
If the number of women of childbearing age in the UK who were born in Poland continues to
increase relative to other groups, this could act to decrease the overall fertility of non-UK born
women living in the UK in future [4], given that the fertility of this group is lower than seen in some
other non-UK born groups. However future changes in the fertility of UK born and non-UK born
women are difficult to project as they depend on a variety of factors that are difficult to quantify,
including future migration flows between different countries, global changes in fertility and the extent
of convergence in fertility between first, second and third generation migrants to the UK and the
indigenous UK population.