If we are to maintain a population size of around 550,000, we are about 2,300 babies short of balancing deaths and births annually.
However, maintaining that without children born to the immigrant population, Malta’s total fertility rate (TFR), currently standing at 1.08, would be even lower, is wrong and misleading. In fact, statistical data shows that in 2022 non-Maltese mothers’ TFR stood at 0.98 children per woman on average while the Maltese mothers’ TFR was at 1.19.
Exactly the opposite of what was being claimed.
We cannot rely on foreigners to save our demographic future. David Coleman (2006), in his Third Demographic Transition, shows that immigrants ultimately accept fertility norms of their countries of destination.
In countries which have experienced sustained immigration flows for decades, such as the UK or Germany, data show that the TFRs of the immigrant population were reduced to the levels close to the TFR of the local population.
In other words, a fertility of rate much lower than the 2.1 replacement level and even lower than the parity progression they would have achieved if they were to remain in their countries of origin. Immigrants quickly realise that bringing up children in developed world countries is expensive. Their otherwise available informal, extended-family support left at home is now non-existent.
Hence, no evident cultural cargo brought by the TCNs visible in exorbitantly high fertility rates in the countries of immigration. Notions that immigrants will overrun are also dangerously alarmist. Likewise, we shall not become a ‘tea coloured society’ any time soon, however, this also depends on the future number of children of exogamous unions (marriages or cohabitating), a variable which at this moment is unknown. Likewise, Generation Z is also somewhat of a new variable when it comes to parenthood.
We need to recognise that fertility is stratified, mothers are stratified by virtue of their life histories and there is no homogeneity when it comes to the attitude to parenthood. Policy measures need to factor this in; there has to be a specific policy to address the needs emanating from a prolonged period of tertiary education level, being one of the reasons for the postponement of parenthood. There is no valid research on family size in Malta without distinctively factoring in the attitudes of women with higher levels of education, as they are our low-hanging fruit, but, at the same time, they have the highest opportunity costs of maternity.
We cannot rely on foreigners to save our demographic future- Maja Miljanic Brinkworth
Moreover, research shows that it is not only the young parent’s high level of education but also the higher socio-economic standing of their parents who are additionally influencing their own children’s attitudes and values about postponement of parenthood through stratified socialisation, stratified agency and stratified opportunity of their marital and parental life histories (Badolato et al., 2024).
In our understanding of the quantum of fertility in Malta, the application of cross-sectional data can only get us so far. My recent collaboration with the NSO team led to a new set of data on fertility in Malta, on cohort fertility, to be specific, which clearly indicate Malta’s higher fertility levels: e.g. cohort of women born in 1976 had total fertility rate equal to 1.57 children and e.g. cohort born in 1982 had around 1.48 children by 2021, with another 10 years of births data still to add to this figure (until 2031), thus both values can only increase with time.
And, yet, in our national debates so far, for some reason, we solely use the 1.08 figure, based on the period data, without a clear understanding of the extent of the depressing impact it has on the real fertility picture in Malta.
It is a high time for us, whose profession is to educate students on demography and related disciplines (such mediating disciplines are indeed many – from environmental studies to medicine, from law to sociology) to meet, perhaps in a form of a brown bag seminar and exchange our knowledge and views on the real magnitude of the quantum problems associated with low fertility in Malta.
Let us meet and discuss, so as to prevent sending further contradictory messages related to Malta’s fertility problem to those who are listening to us: our students, the stakeholders, lawmakers, journalists and, above all, the young Maltese mothers and fathers who although express having two children as their personal ideal number for family life, in 77% of all cases do not want to have another child after already having only one (Times of Malta, March 7).
Anyone for discussion on fertility?
Maja Miljanic Brinkworth is a senior visiting lecturer at the Department of Sociology at the University of Malta.