There was no population growth at all in Germany in 2020, for the first time since 2011. It wasn’t because fewer babies were born, though the birth rate did drop slightly in 2020. Normally, Germany’s population growth results solely from positive net immigration. In fact, without immigration, the population would have actually been shrinking since 1972. Covid-19 restrictions […]
2020 was a year of record population lows. Newly released Census Bureau population estimates show record lows in United States population growth, both in 2020 and for the entire 2010-to-2020 decade. California’s population shrank for the first time as far back as records go, with the Census Bureau estimates indicating that California’s population decreased by about 69,000 residents in […]
The publication of an ESRI report on forecast population growths and consequent housing requirements was published on December 14. The report, Regional Demographics and Structural Housing Demand at County Level was compiled by TCD research professor Adele Bergin and Abian Garcia Rodriguez of the ESRI. As John McGuirk noted yesterday, all the forecasts contained are dependent on arbitrary […]
As Shannon noted a few days ago, the upcoming Chinese census may spur the Communist Party there to further relax its family planning laws or even to abolish them altogether. This is to be welcomed from a human rights point of view, and is perhaps to be expected from a demographic point of view. The previous […]
South Korea has a problem: according to critics its abortion legislation is out of date. So earlier this month, a bill to decriminalize it up to the fourteenth week of was tabled in the South Korean parliament. South Korea has banned abortion since 1953. Exceptions were introduced in 1973 for cases of rape or incest. […]
It is estimated that the number of people who will be in the 60+ age group will reach 2 billion by 2050. The resulting demographic imbalance that this will create will have a major impact not just on economic growth but on all areas of public and private health care. Many of these issues have […]
In the eyes of many around the world the COVID experience of Australia and New Zealand has been a relatively benign one. But as I mentioned last week (here and here) New Zealand is going to have to deal with some significant demographic headwinds in the years ahead due to the pandemic. Now, it seems as if […]
Today I thought that I’d draw your attention to a particularly repulsive ad that graces a bus stop in Vancouver. The ad features a picture of a cute baby, smiling, looking with joy out at commuters. Underneath it, the ad says: “The most loving gift you can give your first child is not to have another.” […]
In 2019, Ireland’s birth rate fell even further, sliding to the lowest level ever on record according to the Central Statistics Office. That means we’re having far fewer children now than we did when this was a much poorer country, with less resources and supports available to families. If children, according to the UN, are an expression of […]
The Balkans used to be the powder keg of Europe, the fault line between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire, the sparring ground for Russia and Austria-Hungary; the killing fields of Milosovic. Nowadays however, the fire seems to have gone out of the Balkans. Instead, the peninsula is sloping into demographic stagnation and decline brought […]
The world’s most “unfashionable” persecuted minority is arguably Christian. Despite being persecuted in far more countries than any other religion, Christians are simply not on the radar of Western consciousness. At a time when the persecution of Rohingyas in Myanmar, Uyghurs in China and Yazidis in Iraq is being under-reported, the world has done little […]
Last week, we reported on a startling study from The Lancet which warned that a population crash – where the number of people in a country starts to shrink – was fast-approaching and would have a devastating impact on societies. With fewer and fewer young people to support an ageing world population, we face massive […]