The Age.com, which I think is primarily pro-immigration, had a good piece on a problem that is not being discussed with all the controversy about Australia's mass immigration program, which has created an accommodation crisis, putting families on the street, and many ending up in tent cities. Australia's population is exploding, but this is due to mass migration. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that the death rate of Australians is at a record high, while the birth rate at a record low. Australia's natural population increase for the 12-month period considered by ABS, was 111,000 compared to the September 2018-2019 figure of 139,000. And the trend is ever downward.
This is one of the arguments which is going to be pushed by the mass immigration lobby, that Australian women do not want large families, so immigration will be forever, to keep up corporate profits. Yet, the migrant women soon adopt the same birth practices as local women, working, even if birth numbers are higher for the first generation. So, to counter this, immigration will be kept high until there are no more people to bring in, and every problem in the Third World is replicated in Australia. Social collapse, already being seen in Europe, will be inevitable.
As I have argued at the blog previously, the birth dearth problem now is being faced by all advanced industrial countries, such as South Korea, and even China. No government policy has convinced women to have larger families. Of course, economics is the reason first given, but viewed in an historical context, even the poor in the West are far better off than the average person even one hundred years ago, let alone in pre-modernity. The crash of births will in itself be sufficient to collapse modern societies without the movement to artificial intelligence. But that will have its own problems too, as discussed at the blog today. It is indeed a maze of wicked problems with no easy solutions.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/forget-sky-high-migration-australia-s-got-bigger-population-problems-20240325-p5fexs.html
"The minute the Australian Bureau of Statistics released its latest report on population growth last week, the usual offenders got worked up, hand-wringing over immigrants and claiming Australia is "full".
The report recorded an addition of 659,800 people, four-fifths of which were due to net overseas migration. In percentage terms, it was the biggest one year increase since Robert Menzies was prime minister in 1952.
But what those decrying the report ignored is the homegrown demographic trouble facing this nation. Australians are dying at record levels while the number of babies being born is sliding down a cliff.
Population growth is determined by three elements: immigration, births and deaths. The difference between births and deaths is called the "natural" increase (or decrease). The ABS figures, which showed a surge in net overseas migration, also revealed a further collapse in the natural increase. Over the 12-month period within the report, Australia's natural population increase was 111,000. For the same period between September 2018-19 the natural increase was 139,000. That's a 20 per cent drop driven by a 3 per cent fall in births and an 11.3 per cent increase in deaths in just four years. If you go back to 2013, the fall in the natural increase is roughly a third.
Over the past year, NSW and Tasmania would have depopulated if not for immigration.
Only one state, Victoria, recorded more births over the past year when compared with the 2018-19 figures. The number of births in NSW, by contrast, fell by more than 6 per cent while they dropped almost 9 per cent in the ACT.
That the number of births is falling is significant.
On the other side of this story is deaths
NSW fared better than every other jurisdiction, with its total deaths to September 2023 up "only" 6.5 per cent compared with the same period in 2019. In Victoria, they were up by 13.1 per cent, in Queensland by 15.4 per cent, in Western Australia by 16.1 per cent, and in the ACT they rose by a whopping 23.6 per cent.
Part of this is COVID-related. Our fear of the virus that first set in during 2020 has given way to an ignorance-is-bliss attitude towards its impact on Australians, but it is still killing people. We're also seeing Baby Boomers now approaching their 80s.
These population woes, though, are not just an Australian phenomenon. Research published by The Lancet shows this century will be dominated by a collapse in fertility rates across much of the world. Canvassing 204 nations, the research found fertility rates are steadily falling, with more than half of all nations already below replacement level (2.1).
That is likely to accelerate further, with the report predicting the global fertility rate will drop to 1.83 by 2050 and sink even further to 1.59 by 2100. For our part, Australia's fertility rate fell to an all-time low of 1.59 during 2020. While it's nominally increased again and is currently 1.63, it is forecast to drop to 1.45 by 2050, and to 1.32 by 2100.
By the end of this century, the research predicts just six nations – half of which are in sub-Saharan Africa – will have a fertility level above the replacement rate.
All of this is happening, despite Australia being one of a handful of countries putting in place so-called "pro-natal" policies such as paid parental leave and expanded childcare to urgently try to address the problem.
But according to The Lancet's report, it may be a case of too little too late, with the authors saying future fertility rates will continue to decline even with successful implementation of pro-natal policies.
Worryingly for all of us, but particularly in Australia, the authors note, "These changes will have far-reaching economic and societal consequences due to ageing populations and declining workforces in higher-income countries, combined with an increasing share of live births among the already poorest regions of the world."
Most economists agree that the single largest threat to the global economy this century is climate change. The second threat is the mass depopulation of China.
Due to its now-abandoned one-child policy, which was in place for almost four decades, China's population is starting to decline dramatically. By some estimates, it could drop by as many as 500 million people over the next 50 to 60 years.
No country has ever experienced such a dramatic or rapid depopulation. The closest analogy is the Black Death that swept through Europe in the 14th century, killing between a third and a half of the continent's population.
While those on the extremist fringe of environmentalism and those who find any excuse to demonise immigrants might be happy about the idea of depopulation, the reality is much different.
As many nations around the world are now discovering, low fertility rates and lower migration levels mean governments face hard choices about everything – from how to pay for infrastructure and deliver services to healthcare, childcare, aged care and housing.
Societies that fracture and become less willing to change and less innovative as they age slowly fade away.
Immigration is having a big social and economic impact on this country right now. But changes in our natural population growth are just as important in the discussion, and could well be far more significant to us all in the long run."