Persons with a foreign background

Statistics Netherlands defines a person as having a foreign background if at least one of his or her parents was born abroad

Persons with a foreign background who were themselves born abroad are included in the first generation; those who were born in the Netherlands are included in the second generation.

The category ‘non-western’ includes people from Turkey, Africa, Latin-America and Asia, excluding Indonesia and Japan

People with a western foreign background include foreigners from Europe (excluding Turkey), North America, Indonesia or former Dutch East Indies, and Japan and Oceania.