For today’s demographic note we present the chipper consensus viewpoint of the UK government and the mainstream media, followed by a realistic perspective from Mark Steyn.
“Warning on Britain’s grey population“, The Telegraph, 6 December 2008 — “Evidence of the challenges posed by the ageing population will be unveiled by Britain’s statistics chief this week. Excerpt:
Karen Dunnell, the National Statistician, will bring together a wide range of evidence on the growing number of older people, and examine the changes this will bring to society and the economy.
It is the first time the National Statistician has focused on the issue in her “annual article”, which offers an in-depth examination of a particular aspect of Britain’s population figures.
At the same time, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will publish figures showing that the UK’s birth rate surged last year to a 30-year high, driven by a baby boom among immigrant families. Among all babies born in the UK, 23 per cent had mothers who were born abroad. Whereas British-born women have only 1.7 children each on average, the figure is 3.9 for Bangladeshi-born women in Britain, and almost five for Pakistani-born women.
For the actual report see: “Ageing and Mortality in the UK“, National Statistician’s annual article on the population, Karen Dunnell,
Population Trends, Winter 2008, no 134, pp 6-23 .
For perspective on this we turn to “Sunset in the West”, Mark Steyn, National Review Online, 7 December 2008 — Excerpt:
The conventional solution of homo economicus to the lack of homegrown young people is to import them. The remorseless aging of Britain suggests that no society in serious demographic decline can have an immigration rate high enough to compensate for it.
… By the way, that British-born 1.7 is only kept that high by the significantly higher birth rates of British-born women of Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent who now account for the main demographic energy in most English cities. Britain’s future will be more Muslim. The only question is how much more. But, at some point, those fertility rates put a question mark over the social compact. In 20 or 30 years’ time, will a young, demographically healthy Muslim working population with vast extended families be willing to pay confiscatory tax rates for the shuffleboard years of an aged, childless, fast shriveling Anglo-Celtic population? All welfare societies presuppose a commonality of interest that in the Britain of 2025 will no longer be there.
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Here are the posts about demography on the FM site:
- Another front in the geopolitical struggles shaping our world (3 June 2008)
- “The Return of Patriarchy“ – a classic article about demography (5 June 2008)
- More news about Russia’s demographic collapse (6 June 2008)
- The War Nerd discovers van Creveld’s “power of weakness”, and demography (18 July 2008)
- Another front in the geopolitical struggles shaping our world (3 June 2008)
- “The Return of Patriarchy“ – a classic article about demography (5 June 2008)
- More news about Russia’s demographic collapse (6 June 2008)
- The War Nerd discovers van Creveld’s “power of weakness”, and demography (18 July 2008)