Future demands fecundity

HOW many people were aware of the startling news last week that Australia's population had reached 22 million? Well, it wasn't so startling. We are so used to hearing about infertility that we don't think about population increase as a separate phenomenon.

In 1998, Australia had 85,120 new immigrants. By 2008-09, we had 232,098, nearly triple. On top of that, we've seen 629,000 temporary residents come here on work and study visas, with many hoping to transfer to permanent residency.

So we may ask: What is all the fuss about infertility and, with numbers such as that, should we still be trying to increase our population naturally or, as the worst doomsayers recommend, should we be aiming not to have babies?

Of the two population variables, fertility, unlike immigration, is fragile. It is not predictable. What is more, under the Rudd government there are predictions of the cost of living rising with an emissions trading scheme. The government is tweeting on about working families and tax reform but will not do anything radical to encourage natural fertility, which may fall back. So perhaps we should just rely on immigration? That is the problem; we can't.

The myth that society having many babies is a bad thing is very powerful. It is a hangover from the Malthusian logic of the old zero population growth nuts of the 1960s, which taught a generation that there is a population bomb about to blow up in our faces.

But most people don't understand that although you can increase population by tweaking the immigration rates, now up to 190,000 a year, immigration alone will not produce the right sort of age profile so the disproportionate demands of a dependent, ageing population are cancelled by a steady inflow of newborns to sustain the economy. We need both natural increase and immigration to do this.

Furthermore, we need immigration of the right sort: immigration of people who will have families.

In general, immigrants tend not to have any more children than the native-born, although there are some notable exceptions. Some immigrants, such as the Chinese, have a lot less, with a birthrate of only 0.9. Remember we are talking about the average number of births during a woman's lifetime.

Lebanese Muslims have on average more than four times the overall rate of native births and, unusually, that pattern persists into the second generation. Pacific Islanders also have higher birthrates. Without immigrants who will have children to contribute to the social fabric, Australia's future, with an overall birthrate of 1.93, could be a lot grimmer. In Europe, the imbalance of the population because of very low native birthrates and over-reliance on immigration threatens the social and economic stability of society.

However, the news that Australia is growing faster than most other developed countries, with a predicted population of about 35 million in 40 years, has caused an illogical panic. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, our growth will be higher than India's, code for: "We'll end up working in call centres." It has also prompted an outcry from those old zero population growth fanatics who, as I predicted nearly two years ago, are reinventing themselves under the banner of the climate movement.

Paul Ehrlich, for example, was at it again recently on the Seven Network's Today Tonight show, pushing his bizarre prediction of doom on a new, younger audience that, softened up by the global-warming extremists, is doubtless susceptible to his nonsense: "What's crystal clear is Australia should have a shrinking population. Australia's already in deep trouble, way beyond it's carrying capacity and I'm afraid that not only are we not going to see 40 million or 100 million Australians, we are likely to see many fewerthan 20 million and many may have to evacuate."

Kelvin Thompson, the federal Labor member for Wills in Victoria, expressed concern about Melbourne "having five million in a relatively short time", adding: "I don't think that is the right thing for Melbourne ... I don't want to see Melbourne become a city like Mumbai or Shanghai or Mexico City."

None of these people will bother to pause in their panic about our carbon footprint to think of a couple of facts about population and consumption. Consumption is the main factor governing world carbon emissions. Our emissions are minuscule compared with those of China, which, despite its ruthless population program, has increased its consumption to account for 44.5 per cent of the growth in global emissions.

Density of population, not rate of population growth, is the main problem in Australia and abroad. Within cities, smaller households, not large family households, account for a disproportionate share per capita of carbon emissions.

Finally, Australia's population is so reliant on immigration that none of the predictions of 30 million or 40 million matter anyway. We can tweak our population growth as we have done in the past, as the US has done, because we can control immigration levels. As far as Australia is concerned, the important thing is achieving a balance between immigration and our birthrate. This government seems more intent on encouraging immigration than natural fertility.

It is the legacy of that imbalance that we will have to face in the future. Part of that, of course, in a multicultural society is the cultural balance. That is the real question most people want to address. It is the big question, beyond the simplistic numbers of the doomsayers.