UK Politicians Ducking Issue of Fertility Rates While Focusing on Immigration, Says Expert Demographer

Politicians should be tackling the dangerously low fertility rates in Britain—rather than just addressing the issue of immigration—or the country risks sleepwalking into a situation where there are not enough people of working age to pay for an increasingly ageing population, according to one of the country’s top demographers. Demographer and author Paul Morland said fertility rates in Britain were so low the country risked following in the footsteps of Japan, which has a shrinking and ageing population which is threatening its economic future. In 2021 the fertility rate in the UK, according to the census, was 1.62 and had been well below the required “replacement level” of 2.1 since the 1970s and Mr. Morland said that resulted in not enough British-born people entering the workforce, which meant the tax burden and the financial cost of an ageing population would fall on fewer and fewer people....