A strange thing is happening in Britain that sets it apart from the rest of the European Union. The family size is at its smallest since statistics first begun being kept in 1924. Their bureau of statistics reports that the average family has only 1.6 children.

The Financial Times reports that Britain is seemingly going against the grain of European nations in matters of fertility and has become the least fertile of all European nations.

There are two causes for this trend in small families, says Kathleen Kiernan, professor of social policy and demography at London School of Economics: women are postponing having children, and there is an increase in the number of women remaining childless.

Britain has approximately 20% of its women choosing to remain childless. This may be because many of them are choosing to become professionals and remaining as professionals beyond child-bearing years or it may be because higher lesbian rates. Whatever the reason, their low birthrates may be fueling much of the anti--immigrant feelings that are so strong there. Immigrants traditionally have larger families--2-6 children. With such family sizes, if the downward fertility trend continues, the White British citizen may be a minority. That is always a concern for Whites wherever they hold a majority.

In the midst of that fertility trend, the nations that England once occupied have sent a huge immigrant populations back to them. So the statistics that the Bureau of Statistics offer are for all of England, but they represent the changing face of White British citizens more than the immigrant populations.

The average age of a woman giving birth in England is 29-years old. This average is derived from the whole of immigrants and White British citizens. The influx of large immigrant populations, with their cultural 2-6 children per family, and the downward fertility trends of White British citizens make for an interesting dynamic and an ever change face of the England empire. []
Gibbs