If you have been in New Zealand over the last few weeks (and months) you will have despaired at times at the severe lack of rational public discourse. Maybe nothing has really changed in that regard (our cousins across “the ditch” in Australia would probably say something on this point like: “mate, what are you talkin’ about? You sheep-shaggers could never hold an intelligent conversation. Not like us ‘strayans.” They may have a point; look at the state of Australian philosophy. They have world-renowned “ethicist” Peter Singer as well as this fine philosophical institution...) Anyway, what really brought this lack of public rational discourse home to me was the utter lack of debate in the public arena about the redefinition of marriage that was… click here to read whole article and make comments

The demography of society is constantly changing.  Michael Gove, the British Education Secretary, considers that it has changed so much since the current education system was put in place that it needs an overhaul.  The current system was designed for a 19^th century agricultural economy with its short days and frequent holidays.  The holidays were originally so children could help with agricultural work, but he considers that they are now obsolete and, what’s more, inconvenient for working parents who now, more often than not, both work. 

He also considers that Britain’s Asian economic competitors give their countries a head start by expecting much higher levels of study, school hours, and results from their students.  Therefore, British children will be behind and this will translate into them being less economically successful as adults.  The Guardian reports Gove’s comments:

"We've noticed… click here to read whole article and make comments

eToday I thought I’d return to China’s one-child policy and an attack by two US-based researchers on one of the arguments for the policy: food security. Huang Wenzheng (PhD in Statistics at John Hopkins University) and Liang Jianzhang (professor ay Economics at Stanford University) write that:

“...China has sufficient arable land and food production capacity to respond to any demographic changes caused by liberalization of childbearing.

Food security crises result from a supply shortage rather than a change in demand. Even with an ultra-high birth rate, natural population growth is a few percent a year. If the supply remains unchanged, slightly rising demand will not cause starvation.”

click here to read whole article and make comments

Hi everyone! Apologies for the delay in posting over the last couple of days. We are in the middle of moving into our new house in Auckland and doing some *cough* minor renovation work on it. We’ll be laughing when we move in, hopefully sometime next month, but there’s a lot of work to do between now and then.

The house that we have moved to is on a rise and looks over a small depression. From our windows we can see dozens of houses packed close together. Our house is on about 400 square metres of land and thus is fairly cheek-by-jowl with the neighbouring houses. You really cannot escape the fact that there are hundreds of people living in very close proximity to us. And that is in Auckland, New Zealand, a city that is not large by world standards (at 1.5 million… click here to read whole article and make comments

The following report is very interesting and news-worthy but not making the news anywhere, of course. According to RedOrbit, a research team at the Autonomous University of Madrid has predicted that the population of our planet will stabilize around 2050.  This was based upon global population data from 1900 to 2010 and a model “normally used by physicists”. (This sounds scientific and therefore, as we all know, it must be true). RedOrbit continues:

"[The researches team’s] results, published in the journal Simulation, coincide with the United Nation’s (UN) downward forecasts. The UN estimates that the global population in 2100 will be somewhere between the highest estimate of 15.8 billion (high fertility variant) and the lowest estimate of 6.2 billion (low fertility variant). The low estimate is below the current population of 7 billion. The team of researchers from UAM… click here to read whole article and make comments

More and more people continue to be attracted to the money to be made in Western Australia.  Every other week I hear of another New Zealander who’s off to do something connected with the mining industry over there – the main draw card being the large pay check.

New figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show that Western Australia’s population grew by 3.4%, or nearly 82,000 people, over the 12 months to September 2012.  According to the Director of ABS Demography, Bjorn Jarvis, this is the highest annual growth rate since the early 1970’s.    

The growth was largely due to a 59% increase in the number of people moving to Western Australia from other states of Australia, and a 46% increase in overseas migration (a large chunk of which must… click here to read whole article and make comments

The Copenhagen hospital, the Rigshopitalet, has recently published a report that claims that the birth rate among Danish women is “dangerously low”.  In 2012, there were 57,916 children born in Denmark, down from over 65,000 in 2008 (the total population of Denmark is around 5.5million). More than one in five couples in Denmark are childless and the total fertility rate of the country (1.7 children per woman) is below the replacement threshold of 2.1.  

Why is the birth rate low? The report identifies:

“Part of the problem is that there are fewer women in the country of childbearing age. Couples are also waiting longer to start families, which often makes conception harder,… click here to read whole article and make comments

Here in New Zealand, our roots are Christian and public holidays commemorate Christian calendar dates such as Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  On Good Friday, my husband and I attended our beautiful local Church for the 3pm service and were forced to sit on the floor at the back it was so packed.  However, even in countries where Christianity is a minority religion, it is passionately celebrated. 

The Associated Press has collected an array of images that I thought I would share with you (click on the link to see the images), as has the Canadian Global Press.

• In India a procession of Christians from all walks of life march the streets acting out the Passion – they account for 2.3 percent of India’s huge population of over 1 billion which is predominantly Hindu.  Nuns help the… click here to read whole article and make comments

The US continues to debate what should be done with the country's many illegal immigrants who currently pay no tax.  New proposed legislation could put the more than 10 million illegal immigrants on the road to citizenship, along with allowing thousands of new workers into the country.  However, it will also hold businesses more responsible for verifying that all their employees are legal citizens.  If passed, the legislation will mean the most significant changes to US immigration law in nearly 30 years.

Like so much in life, the key driver appears to be money for the government (perhaps with a smattering of ethics thrown in for good measure): given that it would cost too much to make the illegal immigrants leave they might as well be paying taxes seems to be… click here to read whole article and make comments

Hello everyone, it’s the last day before a long 4 day Easter holiday here in New Zealand. I’m at home this morning looking after little Thomas (not so little since we’ve moved him onto some solids each day!) and writing this while he’s asleep. So a brief blogpost today on one of the more utilitarian reasons that I have heard for abortion/contraception – it saves money. As Keith Riler in First Things blogs:

“As states seek to balance budgets, population planning groups are touting abortion and contraception as money-saving measures. According to their crude calculus, Medicaid-paid births to poor mothers strain the social safety net and must be reduced.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, for example, claimed that money would be saved if fewer babies were born. The Guttmacher Institute insists that “the [contraceptive] services… click here to read whole article and make comments