The European Union’s statistical office, Eurostat, and the Directorate General Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion of the European Commission (honestly I have no idea how the different organisations, commissions etc work in Europe, but according to Cyprus they’re worth every Euro…) have just released a report on the current demographic trends of the 27 member nations of the EU.  This report, entitled the “Special Supplement on Demographic Trends” provides an overview of the EU’s current (2012) demographic makeup and compares it to the situation in 1992.  

In a nutshell, in the twenty years since 1992, the EU has become larger, much older, less likely to be married and more likely to have children out of wedlock. The population in 2012 is roughly 503.7 million people, 6% more than 1992. The overall share of those aged 65 years old and above… click here to read whole article and make comments

We reported on Detroit’s population problems back in October last year.  Not surprisingly, with the loss of 25% of its population in the last ten years, those problems have not gone away. 

Detroit is a case-in-point of what can happen when population quickly contracts.  Once a bustling, successful city (largely due to the automobile industry) the population exodus has left whole neighbourhoods of empty, valueless houses.  Those seeking to take advantage of the situation search the empty buildings for scrap metal and any other valuables.  One can only imagine the rodents that also search for food and shelter within their empty walls. 

This situation has largely arisen because of accounting and cost problems.  Cities come to rely on taxpayer money and Council rates - and many costs are fixed meaning that they don't decrease as people leave the city and accordingly stop paying rates.  While the population and rate… click here to read whole article and make comments

 

 

Just to follow up yesterday’s blog/rant, there is an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by Philip Bowring arguing that the likely changes to China’s one-child policy will not make much difference to China’s low fertility rate.  In short, China faces demographic problems that will continue even if the one-child policy is lifted. The reason why it is expected that some relaxation will occur of the one-child policy (if not its abolition) is the noises that were made publically during the National People’s Congress:

“The National People's Congress on March 10 proposed moving population policy to the National Development and Reform Commission. This body will take a broader view of the country's economic needs than China's soon-to-be-irrelevant family planning commission, which often seemed oblivious to population shifts after the one-child policy launched in 1979.”

… click here to read whole article and make comments

A couple of articles today about China’s one-child policy.  RT News has reported the staggering figures and cost of the communist regime’s policy over the last 40 years:

“More than 330 million abortions and almost 200 million sterilizations have been performed in China since family-planning policies to limit the population were introduced 40 years ago, the country’s Health Ministry has revealed…Data also revealed that the government has done more than a half-billion birth control procedures, including the mandatory insertion of some 403 million of intra-uterine devices – a practice considered a regular birth control procedure in the West, if chosen voluntarily – the Financial Times reported.”

This is just staggering. But it doesn’t seem as if the one-child policy as a whole is unpopular (after all there are very many exceptions to it!):

“The country has generally… click here to read whole article and make comments

Sweden, grappling with increasing longevity, is considering both raising the retirement age to 75 and a state education plan for people in their 50s.  Will the future see us leaving school at 18 to return for re-training when we’re 50?  No matter what the solution, current welfare expectations can no longer be met if the retirement age (and mindset) remains as it is.

If Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has his way, Swedes will be encouraged to re-train in later life so that they have the skills to change to work in a career more suitable to their age (should this be necessary given their former career obviously).  One practical way to achieve this is to make student loans more accessible to this age group.  Such steps would mean that Swedes would be equipped to work longer and will no longer be able… click here to read whole article and make comments

On a momentous day for the Catholic Church (and the whole world I would argue, but that might be more contentious) in which we have seen the election of the first successor of St Peter from the Americas, I thought it appropriate to bring some demographic news from the Catholic world. This piece from Northern Voices Online was written before today’s news so is a little dated. However, what is clear from the article is that the heartland of Catholicism in terms of practising members is no longer Europe, but is Africa and Latin America:

“When weekly Mass attendance is at an all-time low in Western Europe and the population of Catholics declined in the continent, in Africa their number grew from 55 million to 146 million between 1978 and 2007. Now the number has reached 176 million. Though… click here to read whole article and make comments

Today I’m providing a bit of an update on the penetration of internet usage around the world. Six months ago I blogged about the internet and how the UN predicted that around one-third of the world has access to the internet. The same UN agency that predicted this six months ago, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), has released a study that shows that next year there will be as many mobile phone subscriptions in the world as there are people (seven billion). As the Dubai Chronicle reports:

“It is predicted that towards the end of this year, the mobile penetration will hit 96% on a worldwide level. This rate will be equal to 89% in the developing world and to nearly 130% in the developed one.”

Added to the spread of mobile phones, many of which are… click here to read whole article and make comments

In today's guest post, Denyse O'Leary ponders what our increased longevity means for the Papacy, along with the reasons behind it.

Due to medical advances, popes (like other people) live much longer than they used to—and might easily outlive their cognitive abilities, a fact that Benedict clearly recognized and had begun to plan for years ago.

One problem with John Paul II’s death in office was that the Vatican was paralyzed for months during his final illness. His conduct was inspiring, to be sure, but the situation was not administratively helpful. Good things that John Paul II wanted to do just could not get done.

Benedict relied on canons put in by a predecessor to whom he had a special devotion, 12th century Pope St. Celestine V, which allow a Pope to resign and allow the Cardinals to choose a successor. Sorry, scandal mongers.  Go somewhere else for your prey.… click here to read whole article and make comments

Last night I got home from work full of enthusiasm and excitement. Why? Because it was Census night! The night on which everyone in New Zealand sits down at a desk and completes their forms. One census form for every person in the dwelling and one for the dwelling itself. This is an event to make statisticians and demographers weak at the knees. We were actually participating in a collation of demographic data! What was more, for the first time New Zealand’s census was also available online. That is, we could sit down at our computers and type in a secret code and then fill in all the details that we otherwise would have to laboriously write out by hand. So you can see why I was excited.

So, did it live up to my excitement and anticipation? Well, like most… click here to read whole article and make comments

 

At First Things, Peter J Leithart has made some interesting observations about the state of Christianity in the Middle East. Once the heartland of the Christian faith, this area of the globe has been a hard place for a Christian to live in the last 50 years or so.  Just read the list provided by Leithart:

“According to Walter Russell Mead, more than half of the Christians in Iraq have fled the country since 2003. Today it’s happening in Syria. Swedish journalist Nuri Kino reports on a ‘silent exodus of Christians from Syria’ in the face of ‘kidnappings and rapes.’ It’s a regional trend. Two years ago Caroline Glick reported that ‘at the time of Lebanese independence from France in 1946 the majority of Lebanese were Christians. Today less than 30 percent of Lebanese are Christians. In Turkey, the… click here to read whole article and make comments