Europe’s Migrant Flood Brings Germany a Much-Needed Baby Boom

As Germany wrestles with the political and economic fallout of surging immigration, one thing has become clear. The foreigners are giving the country something it needs: more babies.

In 2015, Germany’s birthrate rose to 1.5 per woman, the highest in 33 years. The state statistics service attributed the increase mainly to foreign-born mothers, who accounted for a record-high 1 in 5 births. German-born moms have an average of 1.4 kids; for foreign-born women, the figure is higher than 1.9. “It’s much easier to be a family and have kids here,” says Basima Shhadat, who gave birth to a daughter in Munich in 2015, a year after arriving from Syria with her husband and five sons. Four other sons died in Syria, she says. “My kids can live here. There are no bombs.”