The greatest crisis now facing the West is not so-called climate change or the real dangers of mass immigration, although these are being used by global influencers to destabilize populations and even overthrow sovereignties. The greatest crisis is not the rise of surveillance regimes that gravely threaten freedom and democracy, nor is it the rise of a legion of sexual ideologies that assault the primordial male-female binary and the procreative relationship that is its exclusive prerogative.
Half of the nearly 25,000 cities in the US could become ghost towns by 2100, a study suggests.
Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago found that in a modest scenario, around half of cities could lose up to a quarter of their resident populations by the end of the century.
If fertility rates continue to decline and the exodus from cities gets worse, as many as two-third of cities could see their populations shrink significantly.
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
These words are from the Book of Isaiah, written hundreds of years before the first Christmas. For Christians, however, they are prophetic of the most important birth of all time.
For non-believers, though, what really gives Christmas its power over the human imagination is that it is about life, as well as light. The flame flickering in the darkness is an uncertain symbol of hope, but the newborn child is a living promise. Christmas, with its focus on the Infant Jesus — and, by extension, children everywhere — exerts a special hold on the human heart.
Anyone in need of a break from the frivolity of so much Western politics should spend time in Poland. The conditions there, I was pleased to find on my first ever visit last month, are highly favourable to thoughtful debate about important matters. The country does not go through the tedious ritual of pretending, for instance, that importing endless numbers of foreigners with no ancestral attachment to Poland is an enriching exercise. This may have something to do with the fact that the Polish elite, whatever their other faults, never subjected their country to such a treacherous demographic experiment in the first place, so there is no need to dream up an ex post facto rationalisation. Nor is Polish conservatism plagued by the predominance, so regrettable in Britain, of free market fundamentalists who obsess over GDP while failing to grasp that all economic activity takes place within a pre-existing culture whose health is paramount.
Although this country’s population grew robustly last year, our total fertility rate continues to decline, data released by Statistics Canada Wednesday reveal.
The debate over how to address the issue is going to get ugly. In some parts of the world, it already has.
Canada grew by more than a million people in 2022, because we took in just under 470,000 immigrants and almost 700,000 non-permanent residents, mostly students and temporary workers. That’s significant, because at just 1.33 children per woman last year, this country’s total fertility rate (TFR) is far below the replacement rate of 2.1 needed to maintain population stability absent immigration.
Murumuru spends his weekends toiling on building sites in Japan in the sticky heat of summer to supplement the income from his other job at a bakery. A certified IT specialist, he arrived in Tokyo from Sri Lanka a year ago, hoping to take advantage of job opportunities that have opened up as part of Japan’s efforts to tackle its population crisis and encourage more immigration.
But Murumuru, a nickname given to him by his Japanese colleagues, has found it hard. Despite staff shortages, both he and his wife, a qualified physiotherapist, have found the language barrier an obstacle.
“All of the hospitals ask for N1, as do many IT jobs,” he explains, referring to the highest-level Japanese test for foreigners, requiring the ability to read around 2,000 kanji characters.
The country’s total fertility rate has fallen to a record low
The fall in Chinese birthrates might be the biggest story of the 21st century.
Unfortunately, the data — or lack thereof — has been found wanting. A must-read analysis by Liyan Qi for the Wall Street Journal points out that China’s National Bureau of Statistics “stopped releasing annual data on total fertility rate in 2017”.
Britain’s top demographics expert has said the falling number of babies born in Britain is a “good thing” after new data showed the number of births had hit a 20-year low.
Professor Sarah Harper CBE, founder and director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing and a former government adviser, said falling birth rates in the West were “good for… our planet”.
Her comments came after official figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed there were 605,479 live births in England and Wales last year, the lowest number since 2002.
Generation Z—Americans born between 1997 and 2012—will be the last generation in U.S. history with a white majority population, with ‘generation Alpha’ (those born after 2010), set to inaugurate a new ‘majority-minority’ age sometime in the mid-2040s, an analysis of census data has revealed.
Ethnic minorities already comprise more than half of the population in the United States that is under the age of 18, according to the figures.
Gen Z Americans – who were born between 1997 and 2012 – will be the last generation with a white majority and will give way to a post-2012 “majority minority” Generation Alpha, according to a new study of updated US census data.
That change – when non-Hispanic white people will fall below half as a share of the overall US population – should come around 2045, the study predicts.
Projections of the nation’s demographic makeup, including age structure and race-ethnic composition, also show that the fastest population growth is occurring among the older population while the youth population declines.
Over the past 40 years, no party has dominated the Spanish political landscape like the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, or PSOE, now headed by Pedro Sánchez. Yet frustration over its handling of key issues — from the economy to immigration to regional separatist movements — has provided an opening for the centre-right People’s Party (PP) to win a plurality in national elections this Sunday. Were this to happen, it would likely enter into a governing coalition with the hard-Right Vox party.
Youth alienation isn’t confined to the West
Ever since the phrase “the generation gap” was minted — by a headline writer at Look during the youth rebellion of the Sixties — trouble has been brewing. Today, there are two generational conflicts in play around the world: one within the depopulating wealthy countries, and another within the more fecund, but far poorer, countries of the developing world.
On December 4, 2022, the streets of Valetta, Malta, were packed with people hoisting pink signs and large photographs of babies in the womb. The crowd—20,000 strong—headed to Castille Square, the largest in the capital, and placed an enormous photo of a newborn baby on the steps leading to Prime Minister Robert Abela’s office as chants of “Long live life! No to abortion!” rang from the walls. From the square the crowd marched to Republic Street, where former President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, former EU Commissioner Tonio Borg, Irish MP Carol Nolan, retired judge Giovanni Bonello, Life Network CEO Dr. Miriam Sciberras, and other guests delivered speeches.
Thirty-five states have fewer children than five years ago due to declining birth rates nationwide and families moving to different areas to escape rocketing housing prices, new figures show.
California, Illinois and New Mexico, had the biggest decrease, dropping by six percent between 2017 and 2022, according to a Stateline analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.
It was reported that high housing costs was a factor as families have moved for a lower cost of living. That has led to a decline in school attendance and now school staff are facing the possibility of layoffs.
White British children could be in a minority in schools in 40 years, an Oxford academic has claimed.
Dr Paul Morland, a demographer and academic visitor at St Anthony’s College, said previous research had suggested that around 50 per cent to 60 per cent of the overall British population would define themselves as white British by the year 2060.
Britain is becoming an outlier on immigration
Other European countries are taking a far more hardline stance
Like much British political discourse, the ongoing small boats crisis in the Channel is utterly divorced from developments in the rest of Europe. Opponents of the Government’s scheme to deport irregular arrivals, as the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby demonstrated yesterday, cite Britain’s humanitarian obligations under the European Court of Human Rights as an immovable obstacle. Yet in the EU itself, national governments facing similar migration flows remove unwanted migrants through the simple expedient of ignoring their legal obligations, to their voters’ approval.
