October 24, 2007 | posted by Michael Baxter in IABN |

Well, last year there were 60.6 million of us. Not so long ago there was a feeling that the UK’s population growth would peter out, but several revisions of the official data since, and the thinking right now couldn’t be more different. As for the demographic time bomb, well, maybe it will be more of a demographic time whimper.

According to the Office for National Statistics, the UK’s population is likely to grow by 0.7 per cent a year for the foreseeable future.

It’s not just down to immigration. The average family size has grown, with your average woman now having 1.84 children, and we are living longer. A boy born today can expect to live until he is 77.2, and a boy born in 2031 can expect to live until he is 81.5, says the ONS. As for girls, it’s 82.7 and 86.2, respectively. So that means your average girl born in 2031 will die in the mid 2120s. Clever aren’t they, those statisticians? They are so clever that they are able to factor in future developments in medicine, future wars, and the effect of global warming and come up with figures of such precision.

Their cleverness applies to working out the flow of immigration too. The ONS now says there will be 190,000 net migrants a year. That’s a remarkably round figure isn’t it? It’s a remarkable jump on the ONS’s previous estimate too. When it last estimated immigration, the ONS said the UK flow was 145,000. Still, they must know what they are talking about.

Actually, the ONS figures for immigration don’t take into account migrants who are here for less than a year. Never fear, our official compiler of statistics will be unveiling its calculation for this measure on Thursday. No doubt it will put a lot of effort into quantifying it, give all kinds of reasons for the estimate, and then change it by a massive amount six months later.

The ONS data does, however, reveal interesting projections. In 2016 it reckons there will be 65 million of us, and by 2050 there will be more Brits than Germans, with our total population coming in at 77 million.

In 2006, there were 3.3 people of working age for every person of State pensionable age. 2010 is the year that the planned pensionable age for women will rise and, taking that into account, the ONS reckons the ratio of working population to retired will fall to 3.20 in 2011, but rise to 3.23 in 2016. But beyond 2016, the ratio will steadily fall, dropping to 2.9 in 2031. As we said above, in terms of impact on our pensions, that’s more of a demographic time whimper then. The ratio of working population to retired will be much lower throughout most of Europe - in Italy and Germany, for example, while the ratio is set to decline much faster in Eastern Europe and Russia.

Capital Economics has been busy getting all its economists to start counting up on their fingers what this means for economic growth. If you assume productivity growth is 2 per cent, and population growth is 0.7 per cent, then the economy should expand by 2.7 per cent a year.

Unfortunately, the ONS was unable to quantify whether a greater population would mean greater sporting success for our national teams. We predict that if our population will match Germany’s by 2050, then by the mid-point of this century, England, might win the World Cup. Except of course, that after deducting the population of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland from the total, the demographic advantage will still be with Germany. Maybe the 2070s will be England’s decade on the football pitch. We can’t wait.

PS. If you want to be a little more precise on the implications for our football team, bear this in mind. Many of the migrants who are boosting the UK population will play for or support their country of origin. Cristiano Ronaldo plays for Portugal, Roman Abramovich supports Russia. On the other hand, the German population will be much older, which will help our chances. It’s all irrelevant, of course. It seems likely the second half of this century will be dominated by football teams from Africa.

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