23 March

In the past half a century the fear of overpopulation in the world was pretty common. But during that entire time, global birth rates have been in free fall. To the extent that many parts of the world now face a genuine crisis of having badly ageing populations with nobody young to carry on the culture, or to look after the old. Immigration is the only emergency measure to address this, but in many of these nations of oldies it’s a hot political potato. And even it won’t fix this problem longer term.