Problems ahead due to shrinking population

I’d like to look at some numbers.

The most numerous group in our population are those born in the late ’60s and early ’70s. This was a time when contraception was largely down to the willingness, or otherwise, of men to use condoms. There was little concern about teenage pregnancy, as long as the couple got married. Women gave up work when they had a baby. Today there is a wide range of reliable, female-controlled contraception available and abortion as a last resort. We are actively trying to reduce teenage pregnancy.

As indicated above, women are under increasing social, economic and political pressure to make the generation of taxable income central to their lives. As a result, the average woman will have her first child later in life, she will have fewer of them and in an increasing number of cases none at all.

Let’s look at the effects. Having children later in life means there will be fewer generations alive at a given time so the population will be smaller. This may not matter, but the effect of fewer children certainly does. In 1971, there were 10,213 women of childbearing age (15 to 44) and 826 children under the age of one. A ratio of 81 babies per 1,000 women. In 2016, there were 11,360 women and 654 babies. More potential mothers but fewer babies, a ratio of 58 per 1,000. Looking forward there were 10,087 women and girls under 30 in 2016. That means that to ‘maintain the breeding stock’ we need the permanent immigration of nearly 1,300 suitable females by 2031.

Will that solve the problem? No. We now need to consider the fertility rate, that is the number of babies each woman has. The Health Profile Report 2013-15 gives this as 1.56 babies per woman, about three quarters of the level needed for a stable population. The gender balance at birth varies somewhat over the years but a figure of 107 boys per 100 girls is not unreasonable. Combine these figures and 1,000 women will have around 754 daughters, 568 granddaughters and 428 great granddaughters. A somewhat alarming calculation, even if it will take decades to work through. If we now look at the forward projections in the E-Census report 2016, these predict there will be between 8,552 and 9,930 under-16s in 2071, based on net annual inward migration of 100 and 200 respectively. This compares with 13,112 in 1971.

This is not a problem unique to Guernsey – Europe as a whole is producing too few babies to maintain itself long term.

We may be able to pick and choose who we let in now, but in the future we will be competing for people to fill our vacancies.

LAWRENCE HARDING,

Rougeval,

Torteval.