Promoting marriage is likely the most successful way to promote more births in Asia, according to recent research by Mengni Chen, a research scientist at the University of Cologne in Germany and University of Louvain in Belgium, and Paul Yip, the chair professor (population health) at the University of Hong Kong. 2020 estimates continue to place the […]
Remember in the first weeks of the pandemic last year when Italy was the focus of the outbreak? News out of China was sketchy, so most of what we saw and heard of the new virus was from northern Italy: ambulances racing along narrow and dark streets, locked down towns, rows of coffins in churches […]
It is a good time to be a worker. Well, apart from the lockdowns. And it’s probably not great if you are in hospitality. Or tourism. Or in the airline industry. Ok, let’s start again. Leaving aside COVID (who doesn’t want to do that!?) the next few years and decades will be a good […]
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 […]