Population Politics
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POPULATION POLITICS MIKE DIXON AND JULIA MARGO ippr The Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) is the UK’s leading progressive think tank and was established in 1988. Its role is to bridge the political divide between the social democratic and liberal traditions, the intellectual divide between academia and the policy making establishment and the cultural divide between government and civil society. It is first and foremost a research institute, aiming to provide innovative and credible policy solutions. Its work, the questions its research poses and the methods it uses are driven by the belief that the journey to a good society is one that places social justice, democratic participation and economic and environmental sustainability at its core. For further information you can contact ippr’s external affairs department on [email protected], you can view our website at www.ippr.org and you can buy our books from Central Books on 0845 458 9910 or email [email protected]. Our trustees Chris Powell (Chairman) Chai Patel (Secretary) Jeremy Hardie (Treasurer) Professor Kumar Bhattacharyya Frances O’Grady Lord Brooke Sir Michael Perry Lord Eatwell David Pitt-Watson Lord Gavron Dave Prentis Professor Anthony Giddens Lord Puttnam Lord Hollick Sir Martin Rees Jane Humphries Ed Sweeney Roger Jowell Baroness Williams Neil Kinnock Baroness Young of Old Scone Richard Lambert © IPPR 2006 CONTENTS About the authors v Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1 1 Demographic pressures 7 with Howard Reed Population is growing, slowly 8 An ageing society 10 Irretrievably declining fertility? 19 Immigration: a panacea for old age? 21 Internal migration and geographical inequality 21 Solo living and increasingly diverse families 22 Inequality and demography in Britain: 1979 to 2005 23 References 26 2 The role of governments 30 The international context 30 Can policy influence demography? 34 A lack of leadership 40 Progressive silence 46 Policy consequences 48 Political implications 50 References 54 3 Population politics 60 Public appetite 60 A progressive political strategy 62 The political case 65 A Minister for Demography, Migration and Citizenship 68 References 69 4 The baby gap 71 Underlying trends 72 Fertility futures 74 The new fertility challenge: social justice 75 An Anglo-social response 80 The ‘baby gap’ 80 A progressive policy approach to fertility in Britain 82 Informing public attitudes 83 Reducing the ‘opportunity cost’ of children 84 References 88 5 Going solo 92 Two trends in solo living 92 Solo living in older age 93 Solo living at younger ages 97 Younger solo living and housing policy 102 The environmental challenge 104 Poverty and inequality 105 Policy response 109 Breaking the link between solo living and disadvantage 109 Reducing involuntary solo living 113 Conclusion 115 References 116 6 Migration: Moving beyond numbers 123 by Macha Farrant and Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah Immigration in popular discourse 124 Mapping migration 125 Why immigration? 126 New challenges 129 Moving beyond numbers 141 References 144 Conclusion: A role for government 148 Mainstreaming demography 149 The Minister for Demography, Migration and Citizenship 149 Population politics 150 References 150 Appendix 1: Modelling demographic 151 pressure on state spending Appendix 2: Modelling demographic 155 pressure on poverty and inequality by Howard Reed iv POPULATION POLITICS | IPPR About the authors Mike Dixon, Research Fellow, ippr. Before joining ippr Mike worked at Ogilvy and Mather, where he advised on communications strategy. Mike’s research interests include wealth, globalisation, political economy, demog- raphy, genetics, crime and sustainability. His publications for ippr include Crime and Social Justice (2006) and several chapters in Social Justice: Building a Fairer Britain (2005). Mike graduated from St. John’s College Cambridge with a first class BA in Philosophy. Macha Farrant, Research Assistant, ippr. Macha’s current research interests include the economic impacts of immigration in the UK, as well as the impact of migration on developing countries. Prior to joining ippr, Macha worked in Mozambique for the European Commission and for DFID on governance issues. Macha was educated at Wadham College Oxford and SOAS London. Julia Margo, Research Fellow, ippr. Before joining ippr Julia spent three years at the Sunday Times as the assistant editor of the News Review. Prior to this she worked as a researcher at the New Statesman and at Demos, and as a parliamentary assistant to Paddy Ashdown and Simon Hughes. Julia’s research interests include wealth, public attitudes to progressive values, political legacies, demography and the role of the media. Julia graduated from the University of Bristol in 2001 with a first class BSc in Politics. Howard Reed, Research Director, ippr. Howard has been Research Director of ippr since 2004. Prior to this he was Director of the Work and Income Research programme at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Howard is an econ- omist by training with a range of publications in leading journals such as the American Economic Review and the Economic Journal. His research inter- ests include the labour market, tax, benefit and tax credit policy, pensions, education and training policy, and disability and ill health. Howard was educated at Keble College, Oxford, and University College London. Danny Sriskandarajah, Senior Research Fellow, ippr. Danny’s current research examines the relationship between migration and economic development, and the impact of labour migration. He is the editor of the ippr’s Asylum and Migration Working Paper series, and a regular commen- tator on migration issues. He holds degrees from the Universities of Oxford and Sydney. v Acknowledgements Population Politics could not have been written without assistance from many people and organisations. ippr would particularly like to thank Calouste Gulbenkian for its financial support. We would also like to thank the external experts who have commented on drafts of the different chapters and those who attended a seminar at ippr in 2005 at which Tom Kirkwood and Glenn Withers gave presentations. Thanks particularly for the time generously given by Steve Smallwood, Gosta Esping-Andersen, Patrick Diamond, Ann Buchanan, Paul Gregg, Ann Singleton and Fran Wasoff. And we are very grateful for the advice and guidance supplied by our col- leagues at ippr. Particular thanks are due to Kate Stanley, Howard Reed, Peter Robinson, Jim Bennett, Tim Gosling, Leni Wild and Nick Pearce, and also to Matt Jackson, Richard Darlington and Georgina Kyriacou in our external affairs department. Thanks are also due to Emma Saunders, Jak Koseff and Katerina Georgiadis who provided research support. However the views expressed in this report are solely those of the authors. This research uses data from the 1979 Family Expenditure Survey, origi- nally produced by the UK Department of Employment, and the 2003/04 Family Resources Survey, originally produced by the UK Department of Work and Pensions. Both data sets were kindly supplied by the UK Data Archive and are Crown Copyright. vi POPULATION POLITICS | IPPR We have been able to increase fertility rates … This is important for eco- nomic development. And it is something we are proud of. Swedish Social Minister Berit Andnor, 2005 Demography is a very great source of vitality for France. French Transport and Development Minister Gilles de Robien, 2005 Every year we fail to tackle the declining fertility rate is a precious year wasted so far as future generations and the economic welfare of the country are concerned … Whatever we do, it will take at least a generation to turn the figures around. But we should acknowledge this is an important issue and start to discuss it now. Australian Federal Minister for Ageing Kevin Andrews, 2002 The challenge is now to counter demographic change ... [Scotland’s] hopes and aspirations will not be met if our devolved government does not act to counter what I believe to be the greatest threat to Scotland’s future prosper- ity. Population decline is really serious. Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell, 2004 This is not ‘breed our way’ to economic success. This is a very British work and families bill and a very British approach. UK Trade and Industry Secretary Alan Johnson, responding to questions about whether the Work and Families Bill would increase fertility, 2005 vii Introduction Population policies have a bad press. Although governments worldwide have pursued policies aiming to alter demographic trends, ‘population pol- icy’ has become synonymous in Britain with sinister notions of enforced abortions and one-child restrictions in China. This is a shame. At their best population policies are a means for governments to pre-empt demographic challenges and respond coherently, and can be as innocuous as providing better childcare with an explicit, if not primary, aim of raising fertility. But should altering demography be a political concern at all? This question is increasingly significant in Britain. After the failures of corporatism and the anti-state rhetoric of Thatcherism the public remains hostile towards government intervention in private lives and the Labour Government is reluctant to pursue an explicit population policy, which might be perceived as bringing us closer to a ‘nanny state’. Such reticence is a British tradition: despite academic and international obsession with the notion, population policy has never taken serious hold in the modern British welfare state. Yet the question of whether we should adopt an offi- cial population policy is becoming a critical one. Interest in charting demographic trends continues – evidenced by the decision to move responsibility for producing population statistics from the Government Actuary’s Department to a new Centre for Demography (ONS 2005). But Britain stands increasingly alone in its disinclination to react formally to trends; for example, we are now in a small and rapidly shrinking majority of OECD countries whose governments do not favour intervention to counter low fertility (d’Addio and d’Ercole 2005). Although it remains a key focus of academics and demographers, in Britain, raising fertility is not on any party’s political agenda.