Not I think since the 1970s have the annual official population projections been exciting so much interest
It is salutary to remember that then the statisticians were struggling to foresee what would happen to the rapidly falling birth rates. They had fallen of a cliff since the peak year for births (1964 - about 1 million babies born). But they couldnt continue to do so, could they?
Not unless a lot of women reached the grand old age of 30 without ever having given birth!
Every time, the previous projection was proved to be way too high
The introduction to the projections carried the rubric Every population projection carries within it the seeds of its own destruction
Anyone who is interested might care to look at the Report of the Population Panel of 1973, which considered whether we would be able to cope with a rapidly growing population
And then read the Royal Commission on the Population report, published in 1948 but having as its basis the worries about ultra slow population growth of the 1930s when middle class parents went on strike & we were in danger of being overwhelmed by the higher birth rates of the lower, less intelligent poor. We needed immigration, for the economys sake. But where might we hope to find people of the right sort?
