Thread by @faisalislam

NEW:

UK natural population declined in 2020, after spike in pandemic deaths, and ongoing long term decline in birth rate.

Across all four nations provisional figures show:
689,698 deaths - well up on normal
684,639 births

Natural population fall of 5k ...
v v rare

V v rare. Only happened in one set of figures since WW2 says @jdportes in the late 1970s.

Had to work this out from 3 different data sources - stress figures are provisional - trend is driven by really notable & yet little commented on collapse in fertility, combined with the shocking death rise during pandemic...

Across UK in 2020 Scotland pushes UK fig negative

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 & 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿: Deaths 608k, Births 615557
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿: Deaths 64085, Births 48268
N. Ireland: Deaths 17613, Births 20814

🇬🇧 Deaths: 689698, Births: 684639

Sources: ONS, NISRA, NR Scotland

This should be a one off, reflecting the pandemic, but it does shine a light on

1. The sheer scale of the excess deaths in 2020
2. The structural, quite remarkable fall in fertility over the past 7-8 years... raises question can young people actually afford to have families?

Getting up to date UK wide stats is not easy… but HT @jdportes for pointing to this showing trends for England & Wales, likely echoed UK wide, showing only precedent in past century is in 1976-7 and peak in deaths at start of WW2 in 1939.

We will update these figures…

Updated chart here - pretty stark stuff:

UK deaths overtaking births for first timers 2020 since 1976, and only second time since 1900, on this measure, which excluded WW deaths abroad. Including that and 1939 would also count.

UPDATE:

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 & 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 - deaths 608k, births 616k
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿- deaths 64k, births 47k
NI - deaths 17k, births 21k

🇬🇧- deaths 690k, births 683k
Net UK population shrinkage: 7k

(Corrected 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 numbers from above)

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-576007…