This week there was a little piece in the local newspaper about how New Zealand has been ranked the 6th best country in the world to be a mother according to the Save the Children Fund’s 2011 study.  I wonder if this achievement would have got more coverage if we hadn’t been soundly beaten by Australia who came 2nd. (New Zealanders are desperate to beat Australia in anything, it doesn’t matter what.  I get the general impression that it doesn’t work both ways and Australia isn’t too fussed.)

The study’s results can be found here but some interesting facts:

• The survey ranks 164 countries.
• The top three are Norway, Australia and Iceland. … click here to read whole article and make comments
  
  

Back in 2009, the leadership in Japan realised that there it was facing a massive demographic problem.  This problem was not rampant population growth, but the opposite – declining fertility and a growing elderly population.  According to The Washington Post:

“In 2009, just 13.3 percent of Japan’s population was 14 or younger — the lowest percentage ever registered by a country. By 2030, according to government estimates, one in every three people in Japan will be 65 or older. One in 10 will be 14 or younger.”

This problem was only going to get worse as time went on because of Japan’s birthrate of 1.37 children per woman - one of the lowest in the world and well below the replacement rate of around 2.1.

To combat this, the new… click here to read whole article and make comments

I warned recently that unless something is done to reverse current demographic trends, economic necessity, together with the ‘culture of death’ ideology which is becoming more openly accepted, may well mean that the generation that killed its children will in turn be killed by its own children. In other words legalised abortion will lead to legalised euthanasia as a cost-saving and population-control measure.

I was interested to see, following Minette Marin’s proposed ‘final solution’ for Britain’s growing number of elderly people, yet another article in the Sunday Times this weekend linking euthanasia with demographic trends. Lois Rogers, reporting on the recent jointsuicide of a British couple in Australia, concluded her article with the provocative words:

‘Assisted dying is becoming more commonplace with the rise in the number of elderly people. Projections by the government suggest 11m Britons alive today can… click here to read whole article and make comments

The Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, has promised the State Duma that he will invest in “demography projects”.  In a two and a half hour speech that many are claiming is a signal that he intends to reclaim the country’s presidency, Putin stated that:

"According to preliminary calculations, between 2011 and 2015 some 1.5 trillion roubles will be invested in demography projects…First, we expect the average life expectancy to reach 71 years. Second, we expect to increase the birth rate by 25 to 30 per cent in comparison to the 2006 birth rate."

1.5 trillion roubles apparently works out to be about £33 billion and shows the seriousness which Russia’s leaders are treating the demographic problems affecting that nation, problems that were highlighted by the early results of the 2010 census and have… click here to read whole article and make comments

There are many fascinating articles and diagrams at the US Census Bureau website (www.census.gov).  However, being a loving of cartography since my childhood (a very fitting trait for a contributor to a website named Mercatornet!) it is the large variety of maps that really interest me.  I would like to share one with you, the mean population point of the United States of America, tracked census by census.  An explanation of this map is given here:

“The U.S. mean center of population, as of April 1, 2010, is near Plato, Mo., an incorporated village in Texas County. The U.S. Census Bureau calculated this point as the place where an imaginary, flat, weightless and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if all 308,745,538 residents counted in the 2010 Census were of identical weight.” … click here to read whole article and make comments

There seems to be a federal inquiry in Australia at the moment into the optimum population that the Lucky Country should be aiming for.  Various interested parties (which should include any member of the Australian population I would have thought, but then again public inquiries can be dull affairs) are putting in their views on this important issue, including an advisory body to the Anglican Church.  The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that the General Synod’s public affairs commission has made a submission to the federal population inquiry in which it:

“…described population growth as a taboo subject and ‘the elephant in the room’.”

The commission wants the federal government to stop feeding this elephant by halting:

”…any policy that provides an incentive to increase population, notably the baby bonus.”

… click here to read whole article and make comments

However, one thing is certain.  The Archbishop of Canterbury will open their wedding ceremony by declaring that marriage is ‘an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man's innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church’.  Taking their vows from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, William and Kate will promise to have and to hold from… click here to read whole article and make comments

A short post for Good Friday. Here in New Zealand Easter is a four day weekend – Good Friday and Easter Monday are statutory holidays and there are even Easter trading laws that regulate and limit what shops can open when on certain days.  (Although there is growing opposition to, and much flouting of, these trading laws!)  Therefore, it is fairly common for people to spend the long weekend with friends and family.  I will be doing the same, visiting the family away from Auckland and trying to avoid the terrible Auckland traffic as people flee the city at a stately 20km an hour.

 May you all have a happy and safe Easter holiday! And may the spirit of the holiday – the triumph of life over death – fill you and those you care about with hope, peace… click here to read whole article and make comments

According to the New York Times, there is further pressure on the Chinese Government to modify or even abandon its one-child policy as resulting economic and social problems are becoming more evident.  It is easy to understand why these problems have been ignored or masked until now as originally the one-child policy and the consequent drop in China’s fertility was an economic advantage:

“At first, China’s drop in fertility worked largely in its favor. The nation’s share of dependents — children and elderly — fell significantly in comparison to working-age citizens. “China entered an amazing demographic sweet spot,” said Michael Pettis, a Peking University professor and economist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. By some estimates, the growth in the percentage of workers over nonworkers accounted for 15 percent to 25 percent of China’s economic growth… click here to read whole article and make comments

Russia’s women may be having trouble finding a groom if population trends are anything to go by.  However, alarmingly, their plight may be due to alcoholism as much as it is to fertility and birth rates.  Last month the Russian Government published the initial results of a nation-wide census taken last year.  Since the previous census in 2002, Russia’s population has fallen by 2.2 million to just under 143 million.  However, more worryingly, the proportion of men has fall from 46.6% to 46.3%, which means that the country now has 10.5 million more females than males.

Tom Parfitt, writing from Rybaki, comments:

"While many countries have low fertility rates, here the problem is compounded by a punishing death rate. Smoking, heart disease and accidents are some of the chief contributors. One of the greatest… click here to read whole article and make comments