Craig Hill
KC Hill
Paladin
Oracle of DelphiWhere to for the West? - Part 3
September 5th 2006 07:41
In "Where to for the West?" parts 1 & 2 we saw that the population of many Western European countries are in decline - not a healthy prognosis for any society. But when we look at immigration, the picture looks even worse.
Take Italy for example. It's population is in freefall with a fertility rate of 1.38 and a population of 58 million due to fall to 51 million by 2050. Furthermore, Italy has an annual net migration (defined as the number the number of immigrants minus the number of emigrants) of 120,000. By way of contrast, Iran has annual net migration of -120,000. So not only is Italy's population falling, the number of native born Italians is plummeting.
If you, as I do, believe that it is inherently healthy for a country to know, maintain cherish and promulgate it's traditional culture, this is a trend which cuts to the heart of Italy's well being - and lest I be accused of racism or xenophobia, I believe this goes for any country - not just the West.
The next question to be addressed is what to do about declining populations. We'll look at that next time.
All data for this post gleaned from World Population Prospect
Take Italy for example. It's population is in freefall with a fertility rate of 1.38 and a population of 58 million due to fall to 51 million by 2050. Furthermore, Italy has an annual net migration (defined as the number the number of immigrants minus the number of emigrants) of 120,000. By way of contrast, Iran has annual net migration of -120,000. So not only is Italy's population falling, the number of native born Italians is plummeting.
If you, as I do, believe that it is inherently healthy for a country to know, maintain cherish and promulgate it's traditional culture, this is a trend which cuts to the heart of Italy's well being - and lest I be accused of racism or xenophobia, I believe this goes for any country - not just the West.
The next question to be addressed is what to do about declining populations. We'll look at that next time.
All data for this post gleaned from World Population Prospect
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Comment by Damo