Photograph courtesy of Bridget Coila
The UK population grew by 419,900 in the last twelve months, bringing the total to 63.7 million according to the latest estimates by the Office of National Statistics (ONS).
The UK’s population growth was the highest in the EU, with France coming second with a 319,000 increase over the same period.
The reason for the UK’s surge in population is a combination of a large number of babies born, people living longer, and immigration.
813,000 “recession babies” were born in the UK in 2011-12, the highest number since 1972, with some analysts arguing that this is the “second echo” of the post-war baby boom in the 1960s. As people also live longer with modern medicine, overall there were 254,000 more births than deaths during the period. There were also 165,600 more immigrants in the UK than emigrated from the UK, which also contributed to the population boom.
The rise in population, especially to areas in the South East with the London population rising by 104,000, may cause issues for public services, but it also means that more people are able to take on the burden of paying into the nation’s pensions.
