Britain is Ageing... Immigration Alone Won’t Save Us
It’s time to talk about birthrates
The UK is heading toward a demographic future it did not actively choose: a declining native-born population, an ageing society due to people living longer and having fewer children, and growing reliance on immigration to sustain its economy, even as voters repeatedly call for lower immigration levels.
The ramifications of these demographic shifts should be more widely and openly discussed — not just in terms of economics, but in terms of culture, identity, and long-term national continuity. As the proportion of older citizens rises and the working-age population shrinks, the social contract that underpins everything from pensions to healthcare becomes increasingly strained.
This growing imbalance presents a fundamental question: how should a society renew itself? For many in government and the media, the default answer has often been immigration — bringing in younger, working-age people to fill the gap. But this approach, while superficially appealing, raises deeper questions about integration, identity, and cohesion. It also fails to address the root issue: the steady decline in family formation and native birthrates.
To seriously confront the challenges of demographic ageing, we should revisit the idea of pronatalism — the view that society should support and encourage the having and raising of children, not as an imposition, but as a cultural and civic good. Though historically controversial, pronatalism deserves reconsideration in light of today’s demographic realities — and especially as a more sustainable and culturally coherent alternative to relying on mass immigration.
In 2022, 19% of the population of the UK was over 65, this is projected to increase to 27% of the population by 2072. By contrast, in 1972 the percentage of the population over 65 was 13% of the population. This +65 population growth should firstly be praised as a sign of huge societal progress and development. However, it is important to discuss the associated challenges that will inevitably accompany societal ageing.
The increase in the +65 population means there will be more people with complex health needs and therefore more pressure on healthcare systems. As people live 20-30 years past their retirement dates, the number of pensioners is growing faster than the growth of tax contributors, putting pressure on pension and tax systems. Family structures will become strained as a smaller working age population are expected to help care for a much larger elderly population, and as the state becomes less able to fund care for the elderly.
We are seeing the impacts of ageing already in comparatively similar developed countries. In Japan, for example, the outlook looks dire, and was captured in a warning from the previous Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida “Japan is standing on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society”, amidst growing worries over the economic and social issues arising from having one of the oldest populations on earth.
Why is there relative radio silence in our media and political landscape on this particular problem? One obvious answer is that, currently, our demographic ageing is not as dire as in countries such as South Korea and Japan. But this can be countered by simply saying, if we can observe the negative impacts elsewhere, which will eventually happen to us, why are we not fixated on trying to at least remedy this demographic shift? We need a dose of well-debated and scrutinised pronatalist initiatives to encourage sustainable population growth.
Tricky to define, but generally associated with ‘Social bias toward having children’ or ‘cultural and institutional forces that compel reproduction’. Pronatalism, especially in the Anglosphere, has been seen as a problematic concept that should be brushed under the carpet. Pronatalist policies are seen as excessive overreach, and fundamentally interfering with individual liberties.
Some associate it with nationalism, and with attempts to grow populations for nationalistic gain. Though sometimes these same actors neglect the historic adoption of pronatalism by far-left and communist regimes. But that’s by the by.
These viewpoints are a squeamish reaction from those who see fascism everywhere except on their Bluesky newsfeed. The world's population is ageing and alarm bells should be ringing. It’s time for the UK to stop brushing aside policies aimed at supporting families and boosting birth rates without proper debate
We can abandon the baggage of the 20th century baby-drives, and accept that encouraging people to have children is not part of some fascist conspiracy, and instead makes simple economic and social sense. It is this centrist-dad approach that needs popularising. It would help foster a more sensible debate on how we should react to demographic changes.
Some counter, why should we care? Can’t immigration, robots and AI solve everything? It is very much something we should be concerned about, and those suggested solutions are very unlikely to address the numerous impacts of societal ageing. Allow me to briefly respond to these often proposed solutions.
AI - Touted by the likes of Tony Blair as the potential silver bullet to all public policy challenges. It will be a long while before AI can help look after grandma or fix the vast array of government inefficiencies. In short, it is far too early to tell. Though interestingly, there is hope that AI could substantially improve the efficacy of IVF technology.
Robotics - Similar to AI, we are still a generation or so away from complex robots being utilised as carers. It has been suggested by some that digital and robotic technologies can supplement health-care and social-care functions, but cannot currently provide comprehensive care services for the elderly.
Immigration - It’s well documented that supplementing a shrinking workforce with immigration is a short-term fix. Second and third generation immigrants tend to adopt the same fertility practices as the ‘native’ population.
Relying on immigration as a solution to an ageing society has been promoted by some left-leaning intellectuals and organisations. This lazy thinking deserves special attention, as this approach of importing people (the vast majority of whom are hard-working and tax-positive people, and good on them) risks sponsoring mass demographic and community change, which can risk generating unnecessary tensions between different ethnic and cultural groups n the short and long-term.
Countries have been viewed by technocratic elites as vast worker factories, whose prime purpose is to deliver growth and GDP increases. They neglect the long histories of communities and nations, and this reliance/emphasis on using immigration to fix the cracks in our creaking system highlights their short-termism approach to governance and their lack of intellectual bravery.
We should also consider the dramatic impacts that our reliance on immigration can have on developing countries. Particularly our reliance on health workers from the developing world. So, yes, we should care deeply about population ageing, there is no easy technological fix.
Worryingly, pronatalist policies are often ineffective or only partially effective at increasing fertility rates. Every country is different, and solutions need to be bespoke, not simply focusing on increasing child benefits for people with 2 or more children. To gain traction and public support, such initiatives need to be part of a broader strategy that includes more generous and fairer parental leave, substantial childcare support, affordable housing and other measures that ease the significant financial burdens of modern parenthood.
As countries across Europe and Asia grapple with how to design more effective family-oriented policies, the UK should be part of this conversation. Our policy-makers need to wake up and smell the coffee. What we need is more debate, more coverage, and ultimately participatory forum, to dissect pronatalism and to evaluate its potential as a vital solution, not the solution, to the negative impacts of an ageing society.
The bottom line is we need more children, we should at least begin to aim to be self-supporting. If we want to have a functional and sustainable society, these awkward but necessary conversations need to happen now.
“A society that does not welcome life stops living. Children are the hope that makes a nation reborn.” - Pope Francis
Andrew Hamilton is a London based consultant and aspiring writer. He is passionate about exploring the debates around culture, nationalism, conflict and the climate crisis.
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What nobody seems to be aware of is that our elders biggest fear in life is not being able to take care of themselves. I say this as a 70 year old who’s still working. Some cultures look after their parents themselves either moving back to the family home or mothers moving into their children’s home (that’s because men die younger)
Our problem isn’t demographics it’s the reduction in family values not family size.
This comment may make some people angry, but what the hell, here it goes: if we're going to use immigration to solve some of these problems, maybe we should prioritize immigrants from cultures with similar values. Wouldn't that make native citizens more likely to accept them, less likely to cause ethnic conflict, and more likely to encourage having children with people who have similar values?