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Friday, October 26, 2007

BRITAIN'S DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE

We have had a lot of reporting lately on the prediction that the UK's population will reach 71 million by 2031. I am not that worried by pure numbers - I believe we could build enough houses & other infrastructure if the will was there & that on balance they don't cost the country much more than they contribute financially. Indeed if they were all going to be physics PhDs I would welcome them with open arms.

Nonetheless I am worried about the cultural effects of a vast amount of immigration - I think Britain is more than just a geographical expression. Thus I have decided to look into the growth figures in a little more detail

The population growth rates for Britain are:

Population growth rate: 0.275% (2007 est.)
Birth rate: 10.67 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Death rate: 10.09 deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Net migration rate: 2.17 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.)

which would be 130,000 out of a population of 60 million which is actually considerably less than the next figures.
However net migration conceals the true immigration rate since what it measures is the difference between the immigration rate & the emigration rate. So what is Britain's emigration rate. Well

The latest official figures (2005) show net immigration to the UK of 185,000 (565,000 immigrants and 380,000 emigrants) Taking births & deaths, which are in remarkable balance 7 in fact would probably be negative for native citizens since migrants naturally enough tend to be in their childbearing years we get a net immigration by 2031 of [24 x 565,ooo] 13.56 million & a net emigration of (380,000 X 24] 9.1 million. This is not the 71 million being predicted it is 66 million, which suggests the officials who predicted 71 million are assuming about another 200,000 immigrants a year either as an increase or not accounted for in official figures.

Our present population of 61 million divides as of 2001, 13.1% (5.2% white, 7.9% non-white[36] ) of the UK population identified themselves as an ethnic minority. which gives us 53 million not considering themselves an ethnic minority & 8 million who do (lets be fair - a number of the white part of that must be Scots & Welsh being argumentative). Nonetheless this would mean mean that if we get to 71 million by 2031 people in Britain who are immigrants & ethnic minorities should be (8 + 13.56 + 5 millions) 26 1/2 million out of a population of 71 & 43 1/2 consider themselves primarily British.

This is a very rough & ready calculation on figures which seem to contradict each other & take no account of compound growth, nor of the possibility that a immigrants may well make up a fair proportion of emigrants, or, on the other hand that migrants both ways tend to be young & therefore have more children (I won't even start on the assumption that 3rd world immigrants tend to have more children). What this means is the 24 years from now nearly 40% of the population will be ethnic minorities.

Remember also that we have an aging population - for the first time now having more pensioners than children. It therefore seems quite likely that in merely 24 years the majority of those under 60 will consider themselves ethnic minorities.

I note the same wikipedia source says 40.1% of London's population is already immigrant. Kosovo anybody?

Comments:
Will a predominantly "ethnic" under-60 population want to pay taxes to fund the pensioners whom they will view as Ancient Britons and not their kind of people?

"..if they were all going to be physics PhDs": don't you think we've already got more String Theorists than we need?
 
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