by Nicolas Pouvreau-Monti

In the reputedly “sensitive” field of immigration, the collection and public sharing of data by the relevant institutions in France is sufficiently rare that its implementation should be welcomed when it does take place. This is an effort that the French Ministry of the Interior has been stepping up for several years, through a study program called Enquête longitudinale sur l’intégration des primo-arrivants (“Longitudinal survey on the integration of new arrivals”), better known by the acronym Elipa.

This survey, carried out under the supervision of the Directorate-General for Foreigners in France (DGEF), aims to understand how immigrants integrate in France during the four years following the issue of their first residence permit. To achieve this, it focuses on a representative panel of foreign nationals of legal age – from countries outside the European Union –  who were issued a first residence permit in 2018, and who lived in the ten départements (territories) of mainland France with the highest population of new arrivals that year.

On March 13, 2025, the Ministry of the Interior published new data obtained through Elipa on the “fertility of new immigrant women” - i.e. births to immigrant women who have recently settled in France.[1] An analysis of these figures reveals some striking facts, illustrating the powerful impact of migratory flows on the rapid transformation of France’s demographic landscape.

Family immigration

The first observation that stands out is that the peak of births to immigrant women occurs in the first year after their arrival in France. The proportion of these births taking place one year after settlement is three times higher than that recorded one year before migration. This higher fertility rate is clearly maintained, albeit on a declining scale, over the following three years. Immigration therefore appears to be a powerful trigger for fertility among non-European women who settle in France.

There are several reasons for this. It’s likely that a certain number of women postpone the births they are planning until the moment they settle in France – synonymous with the stability and greater comfort they are seeking. Indeed, the family and social support systems available in our country are incomparable to the situation in their countries of origin, where they are often non-existent. The minimum period of residence in France required to qualify for the main family benefits (family allowances, childbirth bonus, etc.) is only nine months, with no restriction based on nationality.

Moreover, as the ministerial study rightly points out, “newcomer women often migrate to join family members, spouses or children, thus facilitating a new birth”. Indeed, France receives the most “family” immigration of all Western Europe: the proportion of permanent immigrants entering the country for “family” reasons accounted for 41% of total entries over the period 2005-2020 (a rate 3 times higher than that observed in Germany), compared with 10.5% for “economic” reasons, according to the OECD.[2]

Analysis of this ministerial publication shows that the peak in births is particularly marked among immigrants who are inactive on arrival: other things being equal, housewives are around 30% more likely to have a new child within four years of migrating to France than employed immigrants.

“Immigration doesn’t make you sterile”

Another striking observation is the wide variation in these trajectories, depending on the country of origin of the immigrant women. For example, 57% of Algerian immigrant women had at least one birth in the four years following their arrival in France. This is also the case for 56% of Malian women, 54% of Comorian women, and 48% of Ivorian women, compared with 15% of Filipina women and 18% of Chinese women.

Several factors are at work behind such differences, not least the social habits at work in the countries of departure: women from countries where fertility is already high have a significantly higher probability of having a baby in the years following migration. This correlation holds true, for example, for immigrant women from Mali – a country with a fertility rate of 5.5 children per woman.

France has the singular distinction of welcoming the most African immigrants in Europe (3 times the EU average for the share of immigrants from Africa in the total immigrant population). Yet five of the six countries in the world with the highest fertility rates are in French-speaking Africa. As demographer Gérard-François Dumont puts it, “immigration doesn’t make you sterile”.[3]

Unexplained discrepancies

However, unexplained discrepancies emerge for certain countries of origin. Taking Tunisian immigrants, for example: 57% of them have a child within four years of arriving in France – a record shared with Algerian women. But Tunisia’s fertility rate fell to 1.8 children per woman last year, below the threshold for generational renewal. Such a paradox can also be seen in the case of Algeria (whose local fertility rate is nonetheless half that of the Tunisian one). As the ministerial note sums up: for the same fertility rate in the country of origin, “new arrivals from the Maghreb are between 20% and 50% more likely to have a child than in the countries of origin during the four years after settlement”.

Such established facts obviously raise important questions about the integration issues associated with them. Analysis of OECD data has already shown that France’s fertility rate among women born outside the European Union is the highest of all western European countries. For the first time in 2023, more than 30% of all births registered in France were to at least one parent born outside the EU, according to the latest national data from INSEE.[4]

The cumulative effects of accelerating migratory flows and their impact on the birth rate are bringing about rapid changes in French society, which public policy appears not to have anticipated to their full extent. A strategy of “eyes wide shut” is unlikely to provide a lasting response to such upheaval.