Tableland

This problem is in every Western nation. France and Britain are among the worst in fact. Look at the British policy of shifting retirement up to 68 and the enormous tax rises proposed recently. Britain has a dwindling tax base because no one is having children and those that do are part of the 1000 people leaving Britain every day in emigration. Also, older people live longer now and their medicine is getting very expensive.

Although not everyone has accepted it, there are only two answers to this problem:

1. More immigrants (as they tend to have more children).
2. Have more children ourselves.

Or both, I suppose. The only Western nation that has reversed the trend in birth rate decline is actually Australia, although America is doing OK because of the large Hispanic population tat also tends to have lots of kids.

Rosie Cheeks

Why couldn't he earn that money in Australia?
I don't know if this is right or not, but it seems that you don't get many "ordinary" Aussies moving to the UK to work anyway. They are usually professional people, who want that extra edge for when they get back to Australia, after getting the experience elsewhere that will put them ahead of the rest in their field.

Nomore

i wonder if the UK payed woman to have babies like they do in OZ, there would be more pregnancies??? I mean $4000 per child in OZ is alot of money.

Tableland

This is exactly why the birth rate has gone up and is a rare example of government policy working.

Rosie Cheeks

Is there really 1000 people leaving Britain everyday. Wow, I didn't realise that. Where are they going to? The majority to Australia?

Westralia

Our primary industries are not labour intensive and will be less so over time. Pray tell, what do these extra people produce to exchange for crucial imports when when you are as isolated from major markets as we are and cannot achieve economies of scale that are even remotely competitive with newly emerged asian manufacturing powerhouses that have a bottomless supply of cheap labour?

Rosie Cheeks

I received $3000 and I used it to pay my income tax bill.

I would like to add that it was a drop in the ocean of the total tax bill.

Tableland

It was in the news a few weeks ago. It was reported that 1500 come in every day, and it also reportedthat there is an overall gain of 500 a day to the British population. This must mean that 1000 a day leave, and this ties in with another approximate figure in the news recently that stated over 350,000 a year are emigrating.

The most popular places were:

Australia
New Zealand
Spain
Canada
United States

They go on about immigration a lot in the news, but they don't shout about the emigration much. Thinking about it now, they really need to do something to retain skilled people in the UK. They might argue that they can replace them all with skilled people from Poland, etc., and while this is true on a purely technical level, what about the impact on British culture? This amount of people leaving is the equivalent of the population of Birmingham leaving Britain every year. Frankly, it's a scandal and the government should be doing more to address this exodus.

HiddenPaw

It has only done this in the last couple of years then. The rate at the turn of the new millenium was about half of what it had been in the early 1960s. A turnaround since the introduction of the "baby bonus" payment, perhaps?

I'm not sure of the current rate but I do believe it is still way below the required "replacement" birth rate.

HiddenPaw

I can't give you the answers to that question. I'm not an economist. If you're saying that population growth is not the answer to funding the future of the country, then what is?

Rosie Cheeks

Australias baby bonus payment hit the news in the UK. My sister who is there sent me a text to tell me to have a baby because I will be paid for it! So the Brits in Britain were amazed by this policy!

Rosie Cheeks

Thanks for that. It is quite something isn't it. There isn't going to be many Brits left in the UK soon!

A wide range of skilled people are leaving aren't they. Brickies, Nurses, Doctors, Hairdressers, very diverse.

wheatsheaf42

Having worked with Aussies and Kiwis in the Uk I find this a very interesting topic. I hadn't thought a great deal about the professional people moving to the UK but on reflection there is more than an element of truth in it. London is one of the favoured destinations for the go-getting university graduates who want to achieve. The City of London is a magnet for the financially driven and also for those who want opportunities to join international firms. Without exception I have always found them wide-eyed and excited being here and very willing to learn more. They love the travel to the continent an a matter of a couple of hours and the huge variety of cultural experiences Europe brings.

The other group of Aussies over here is the student types and the early 20yo who want to travel and work their way on their 2 year visas. These are often secretaries, office staff and nurses-lord knows what the Uk would do without our Aussies in the hospitals and doing temp secretarial jobs. A lot of these are happy to go back to Oz after their two years.

The real contrast is in looking through the expat forums at the people who are going in the opposite direction.Oz have their specified trades and age groups-and it is illuminating to me that the people going there are of the tradesman rather than management group. If I am right in this simplistic view, then what Oz is in danger of finding that the driving forces of their economy, the motivated, highly educated business creators and managers are actually leaving to be replaced by a workman/tradesmen group. This is not to downplay the importance of tradespeople people, more to highlight that every economy for its long term health needs all sorts, and not to lose those people who have the business creation skills in the first place. As a professional myself I did many years ago research the possibility of moving to Oz but found that my business expertise was not on the wanted list so I dropped the idea. Maybe business opportunities in Oz are limited.

The other section of British expats seems to me to be the more negative "get away from the Uk for a better life" group as the Uk is going to the dogs and the better weather. This is quite a contrast with Oz expats come here because they see opportunities for themselves.

I realise this is all a vast over-generalisation because where we are there is often something in the back of your mind that the grass is greener on the other side. But an interesting topic nevertheless. I have relatives in Oz and they like their life there and hope to visit them shortly.

Rosie Cheeks

Superb post.
Things will become very unbalanced indeed.

My hubby was one of those wide eyed, excited graduates and in my experience they are very welcome in the UK. I had so much fun with him in the UK, travelling around, living in different places, holidays in Europe. Everybody seemed to love the Aussies. He had a fantastic time, threw himself into the culture, and into learning as much as he could about his profession. Spot on about the hospitals and their Aussie workers, I know that first hand.

Westralia

You are off the mark with this view. Many of those on mine sites, oil and gas rigs earn six figures in the North West, more so than dime a dozen management types in Sydney and Melbourne. This has been the case for decades and given the nature of our economy, rightfully so. Unlike Western Europe, our competitive advantage has always been in primary production, more so now than at any time during the past 50 years. Levels and types of management required in higher level production based economies are simply redundant here.
This also goes a long way toward accounting for the "brain drain" here. The brain drain term implies that the phenomenon is extremely detrimental to the economy here. In reality, it isn't since we don't have, and likely never will have, the industries here to capitalise on their talents without the government bankrolling them.
Again, you must take into account that Australia doesn't have half a billion wealthy europeans nor americans on our doorstep to market higher level products to on a scale large enough to justify the massive amounts of investment required to compete. The tyranny of distance, my friend.