Birth rate and not immigration drive population growth
By Sabina Thakur | Sat, 08/29/2009 - 13:25
According to official figures, population of the UK has been pushed to a record high due to rise in fertility rates to the highest level in a generation. This is for the first time in a decade that an increase in birth rate, and not the rate of immigration, has been more instrumental in ensuring a population growth in the country.
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According to official figures, population of the UK has been pushed to a record high due to rise in fertility rates to the highest level in a generation. This is for the first time in a decade that an increase in birth rate, and not the rate of immigration, has been more instrumental in ensuring a population growth in the country.
Office for National Statistics figures show that the population of the UK grew to over 61 million in 2008, which was 0.7 percent higher than what it was in 2007. At the same time, net immigration slipped by almost 44 percent.
It was also observed that the total fertility rate among women of the UK was at its peak now in the last thirty-five years. In comparison to the year 2007, some 19,000 more babies were born in the year 2008. However, more than half of these babies were born to women who were born outside the UK. But National Statisticians made it a point that these women who were born outside the UK weren’t necessarily immigrants who recently came to the UK.
The figures also revealed that number of people aged at or over eighty five years reached a record 1.3 million, which is about two percent of the total population, and thus, it showed that the UK population is ageing.
As per the figures, there has been fifty percent increase in the number of non-British leaving the country which clearly suggests that most immigrants only stay in the UK for a limited period.
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