What’s causing UK population to grow so fast?
Annual population growth is the result of two main factors: natural increase (more births than deaths) and net migration (more immigrants than emigrants). The number of births each year is affected by changes in the Total Fertility Rate* (TFR, or births a woman is expected to have during her lifetime) and influenced by the age composition of a population. For example, if there is a high proportion of young people in a population resulting from an earlier “baby boom”, they might become the source of a future surge in births. On average parents in the UK have decided that large families are not for them: in 2007 the total fertility rate (TFR*) was 1.9 children per woman , up from a record low of 1.63 in 2001, but below the replacement** rate of an average 2.1 children needed to stabilise population in the long term. Britons are marrying later in life, having children later in life, and dying later too – affecting the number of deaths each year. With expected increasing life expectancy, b
