Blog
Rising Birth Rate pushes UK Population Growth to 47 year high
28th August 2009
Newly published figures on the UK population have hit the headlines today. The population of the UK was estimated to be 61.4 million in mid-2008, up by 408,000 (0.7 per cent) on the previous year and over two million more than in mid-2001. Natural changes in population size (i.e. those caused by differences in birth and death rates) last year accounted for a bigger slice of population growth than net migration. Birth rates have risen and rising longevity has driven down the death rate.
The fertility rate has risen to its highest level in fifteen years, some of this may have been due to the impact of strong net inward migration from people in fertile age ranges. Women in their thirties and forties had more babies and the gradual impact of IVF treatment is linked to this. There were 791,000 births in the UK last year.
There is little doubt that the UK’s population is growing quite strongly. In the seven years since 2001, the population has increased by an average of 0.5 per cent per year. And there are also longer term changes in age structure. The number of people aged 85 and over reached a record 1.3 million in mid-2008, accounting for more than 2 per cent of the total population. And as our chart below shows, the number of people over the age of 65 also continues to rise.
In contrast to a few years ago, the scale of net inward migration is now much lower, a reflection perhaps of the impact of the recession and also that many of the migrants who came to the UK in 2004-06 were here only for a few years. The higher number of departures from Britain from the new EU entrant countries means net migration from them was a mere 13,000 in 2008. Emigration from the UK rose 24 percent to 395,000.
Population trends have important effects on aggregate demand and aggregate supply in the economy. They impact both on the level of demand and also the pattern of demand for different goods and services. But it is hard to make accurate forecasts of population growth and size in the years ahead. Migrant flows for example are affected by social, political, environmental and economic forces, many of which are more volatile than they were a generation ago.
Geoff Riley
Geoff Riley FRSA has been teaching Economics for over thirty years. He has over twenty years experience as Head of Economics at leading schools. He writes extensively and is a contributor and presenter on CPD conferences in the UK and overseas.