The received wisdom among demographers and other social sciences is that as countries develop economically and socially their fertility rates decline. However, a recent article in Nature¹ has shown that at higher levels of development, as measured by the UN’s Human Development Index (HDI), the fall in fertility goes into reverse. Could this be the answer to the problem of ageing populations?

Before answering this question, it is important to try and understand why this reversal of fertility has happened and whether it is likely to be permanent. The reversal is likely to have been due to a mixture of a number of socio-economic changes, for example: increased employment flexibility and conditions, especially for women, welfare provision and reforms, governments’ family policies and direct attempts to increase fertility. The authors tested whether the increase in fertility at higher HDI levels was due to… click here to read whole article and make comments

Last week, as the Australian Bureau of Statistics announced a 2 per cent leap (439,000 people) in the country’s population in the year to March, a huge dust storm blew in from the arid interior to blanket much of Eastern Australia. Are the two things connected?

Green groups would probably say, yes. Others, maybe. “Dust storms are a natural phenomenon, but they are influenced by human activities and are now just as serious as traffic and industrial air pollution,” says Laurence Barrie, chief researcher at the World Meteorological Organisation in Geneva, which is working with 40 countries to develop a dust storm warning system.

Most of the recent population increase -- almost 300,000 people -- was from immigration. But the birth rate is up, too, with 160,000 babies born during the year. On that basis Australia’s population could… click here to read whole article and make comments

An interesting book is out by Dr. Brian Lee Crowley, a Canadian economist who sees Canadians returning to traditional values as our population shrinks in coming decades. Titled Fearful Symmetry: The Fall and Rise of Canada's Founding Values, Crowley's book says that with lower birth rates and tougher competition for immigrants, Canadians will eventually return to the founding values of the country, including family and hard work.

Neil Reynolds the long time commentator and newspaper publisher takes a look at Crowley's book in the Globe and Mail, taking a look specifically at the difference between Canada and the United States;

Canada and the U.S. will diverge in other ways. Canadians are already massing into three or four big cities; Americans are dispersing to outer suburbs and to the countryside, but places more distant from the U.S.-Canada border. In 2050, the median Canadian age will… click here to read whole article and make comments

Demographers tend to be control freaks who get nervous if the population rises above or falls below some ideal benchmark -- zero growth, for example. But people tend to procreate -- or not -- with reckless disregard for demography. In Britain the average birth rate fell to 1.63 in 2001, but since then it has leapt to 1.96 (2008) -- nearly back to “replacement” level.

For the first time in a decade, the birth rate last year played a bigger part than net migration in overall population growth in the UK, The Guardian reports.

Undoubtedly the biggest factor in the present boom is immigration. There are more women of childbearing age in the UK and they have come from the Indian sub-continent, from Africa and from eastern Europe to work here and make homes here. The largest number… click here to read whole article and make comments

Germans who have invested in the demise of older Americans are getting angry that the latter are taking too long to die. Statisticians and medical experts are not as good at projecting life expectancy as they might seem to be.

This is what is happening: Deutsche Bank and other financial institutions manage complex funds that buy up Americans' life insurance policies and pay their premiums. When the policyholder dies, the entire payout goes to the fund. Meanwhile, investors provide the funds for monthly premiums. These schemes, first launched in the euphoria which gripped financial markets before the crash, seemed crisis-proof anyway since everybody dies.

But it didn't take long for disillusionment to set in. Many providers couldn't generate the yields promised in their prospectuses. For one thing, many of the insured simply lived longer than expected. For another,… click here to read whole article and make comments

In Brussels, the top seven boys names recently were Mohamed, Adam, Rayan, Ayoub, Mehdi, Amine and Hamza. Mohamed is also the most popular name in Holland’s four biggest cities. Is anyone surprised?

Perhaps not, but a recent London Telegraph article suggests, with a certain note of alarm, that a “Muslim Europe” is emerging while policy-makers refuse to discuss the potential problems of this “demographic time bomb”. It reminds one a bit of Inspector Clouseau avowing, “It is not my Behm.”

Adrian Michaels writes that “a recent rush into the EU by migrants, including millions of Muslims, will change the continent beyond recognition over the next two decades…

The numbers are startling. Only 3.2 per cent of Spain's population was foreign-born in 1998. In 2007 it was 13.4 per cent. Europe's Muslim population has more than doubled in… click here to read whole article and make comments