The national statistics office CBS tells us today that one-third of Dutch nationals will be ‘non-native’ or allochtoon by 2050.

The population is set to reach 16.8 million by 2050, an increase of 400,000 on current figures. And the projected growth, says the CBS pointedly, will be entirely due to the number of official ‘non-natives’ in the Netherlands. And of those 4.8 million ‘non-natives’, 2.7 million will be ‘non-western non-natives’.
It is an interesting statistic – not least because of the prejudices it summons up. So who is the CBS actually talking about? The CBS says you are an allochtoon if at least one of your parents was born abroad. You are a non-western allochtoon if at least one of your parents comes from Turkey, Africa, Latin America and Asia. But if they come from Indonesia, Japan or anywhere else (predominantly white), you will be classed as ‘western’. So now you know.
The growth of official ‘non-western’ foreigners by 2050 will be largely down to an influx of Chinese, Iraqis, Afghanis and Iranians, the CBS says – having failed to mention the Middle East in its official definition.
It will be interesting to see how many newspapers and websites illustrate their articles on this interesting little development with stereotypical pictures of Moroccan housewives in headscarves.