The world's two demographic problems

The "two problems" referred to in the title of this essay are faced by the crowded countries of the global south and of the western nations in Europe and North America. While birthrates are declining in the West to the points where the population size has begun to decline. Demographers have identified 2.1 children per woman as the replacement rate; anything above that results in increasing the size of the population while rates below that mean declines in the size of the population.

Rates that are way above or way below the replacement level means problems that public policy needs to address. The African continent has very high fertility rates while those in North America and Western Europe have declined to the point at which the economies are being hurt.

I will take Canada and the United States as two examples in North America that have used different public policies to deal with large-scale immigration. Countries in western parts of Europe are encountering a different set of problems including rise in Islamophobia which will be the subject of a later article.

Canada has gone full circle from encouraging immigration to discouraging it. The Canadian situation was discussed at some length by Matina Stevis-Gridneff in an article titled "Long Immigrant Friendly Canada is Changing Course", carried by The New York Times on October 3, 20244. The article's focus was the change in government policy allowing foreign students who came to the country for education but once they had achieved their intended goals they were allowed to stay on and do jobs in Canada. The international student programme followed by large number of foreign students "made one route to the Canadian dream of permanent residency though education, appealing for hundreds of thousands of young people - many of them from India," wrote Stevis-Gridneff. "International students, who after graduating are eligible for work and are given permits to continue living in Canada, represent one major category of temporary residents." Another group is made up of workers who come at the invitation of specific employers, while the smallest cohort are migrants seeking asylum. The temporary residence programme was ramped up after the coronavirus pandemic as Canada's economy struggled to fill a labour shortage.

To quote again from Stevis-Gridneff, "Nearly three million people living in Canada have some type of temporary immigration status, with 2.2 million arriving in just the past two years. Temporary residents represent 6.8 percent of the country's total population of 41.3 million, up from 3.5 percent in 2022. There are other examples of significant changes in the way both governments and citizens are looking at migration as one of solving their demographic problem. The American situation is one other case where change has occurred."

According to a report filed by Jazmine Ulloa and Ruth Igielnik for The New York Times, "Americans have grown less negative about the issue of immigration, with the share of those wanting to see immigration decrease now totaling 30 percent compared to 55 percent in 2024. This was the finding reported by Gallup, a polling organisation. A record high of adults in the United States - 79 percent - now believe immigration is a 'good thing' for the country." Continued the reporters, "still, immigration remains an area where Mr. Trump receives some of the strongest approval ratings."

The reporters interviewed several experts to write their story. "We went through a period of irregularity in attitudes on immigration and now we are just getting back to normal," said Lydia Saad, Gallup's director of US social research. The new Gallup report on how Americans look at migration found that more disapprove of President Trump's handling of the issue. Support for stricter border enforcement measures was down over the last year while the support for creating pathways to citizenship for unauthorised immigrants remains high. Support for the president's handling of immigration had fallen, with 35 percent approving, down from 46 percent in February 2025. Support was particularly high with Hispanic adults, 21 percent of whom approved of Trump's approach on the issue, 14 percentage points below the national number. However, Hispanic adults were less supportive of immigration than the public at large.

Continuing with the NYT report quoted above, "the results mark a dramatic reversal in trends that began in 2021 when immigration apprehensions hit levels not seen in 20 years and more than 1.5 million people crossed the southern border for the first time. In 2024 was the first time the majority of Americans told Gallup they wanted to see immigration decrease." Polls show a drop in Trump's approval ratings on immigration and mixed to negative response to his hardline policies. American were evenly split over Trump's use of state and local law enforcement officers in its deportation dragnet and over its efforts to offer money and travel funds to undocumented immigrants who leave voluntarily. But the majority of the public disapproved of ending Temporary Protected Status programmes, suspending most asylum applications and increasing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on job sites where immigrants who are in the United States illegally may be working. One such raid was carried out in a city in Pennsylvania which had a large number of immigrants living and working. The raid drew large number of protesters. To deal with is situation, Trump called in Pennsylvania National Guards and had members of a Marine Corps standing by to assist. The ICE was acting to send out of the country millions of immigrants who had entered illegally.

The way Trump and his administration had begun to deal with immigration worried informed people. One person who looked askance at the way Trump was dealing with the arrival of foreigners into the country is Chris Newman, the legal director and general counsel for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which represents day labourers across the country. So far, he said, President Trump had expended his powers over immigration through executive orders issued from the White House. "But this is legislation signed into law and gives people an impression of a dense of permanence, which is ominous. No matter what, the large budget increase for ICE will leave a Trump imprint on the American immigration system for years to come," said Newman.

"This is the missing piece in mass deportation that the administration needed," said Andrea Flores, who directed border management National Security Council in President Joe Biden White House. "What this signals is a new level of funding for immigration enforcement nationally that likely changes forever even if Democrats come to power."