France has just announced it will be sending a letter to all 29-year-olds outlining their chances of having a child and how the State can provide incentives and assistance to do so. France, like Ireland, has a fertility rate far below replacement level and a rapidly ageing population. David Quinn was on The Hard Shoulder...
New research by the Evangelical Alliance investigates how people in the UK came to Christian faith in adult life. The Finding Jesus report explores those who either converted to Christianity or returned to it after a period of disengagement, across a range of denominations, though most respondents were Protestant. The findings relating to young people aged 18–24...
In 2023, there were 1.26 million more deaths than births in Europe. This downward trend is set to accelerate, despite immigration. A new paper by the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies wonders what we can do to arrest, or even simply slow down this devastating trend. This year, the population of the EU is...
New official figures show that abortions in England and Wales reached a record high in 2023, while the number of births continued to fall. As a result, about one in three pregnancies now ends in abortion. According to the latest statistics, 278,740 abortions were carried out in England and Wales in 2023, an enormous number....
A new report by the Irish Hospice Foundation on “Dying, Death and Bereavement in Ireland” says that as Ireland ages, demand for palliative care is going to increase hugely. The report says that 350,000 people experience bereavement each year, around 6pc of the population. About 35,000 currently die each year and obviously all of these...
A new report from the National Economic and Social Council (NESC) warns that Ireland is sleepwalking into a demographic crisis. For the first time, that warning is coming from an important State-funded body. NESC is an independent advisory body that provides long-term economic, social and environmental policy advice to the Irish Government and the Taoiseach....
The Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe (FAFCE) has accused the European Union of ‘ideological discrimination’ after being excluded from EU funding. In recent months, FAFCE applied for six EU-funded projects focusing on demographic decline, youth policy and child protection, areas that are among the organisation’s long-standing priorities. All six submitted projects were rejected....
After decades of steady decline, the proportion of Americans who identify as Christians appears to have stabilised, according to a major new survey by the Pew Research Center. Moreover, the youngest age group surveyed – the 18-24-year-olds – seems to be somewhat more religious than age groups immediately above them. This is similar to polling...
What happens when a person converts from one religion to another, or abandons religion altogether? A major new report charts exactly this, and a big finding is that “Conversion into Christianity appears to provide meaning, coherence, and social integration, whilst leaving the faith often coincides with disorientation and emotional decline.” This stands to reason. When...
The UK Supreme Court has delivered an important judgment on religious education in a Northern Ireland State primary school, ruling that the current way religion is taught amounts to ‘indoctrination’, and that the right to withdraw a child from RE class should not be unduly burdensome on the child. The ruling does allow that RE...
