This is an article the Daily Mail commissioned in March but didn’t run: PLAIN OR PRETTY? I started out as a plump, cheerful child. I turned into a plump, frivolous adult. Now I find myself described as an apple-cheeked, smiley old lady. I’d be happier to have been be seen as a skinny, feisty child, […]
Families
The new young, by which I mean those of the social media generations, seem to fear physical contact. They prefer not to sit close on the family sofa to watch TV: they’d rather watch in their rooms, on tablets, iphones, laptops, or failing all else their mobile. They would rather talk to electronic friends than […]
The UK’s total fertility rate is 1.82, way below replacement rate of 2.1. Our population is shrinking. Not so fast as in some other European countries, though, where the overall rate is 1.59. Today’s average household size in the UK is 2.3 persons. 50 years ago it was 5. Ask around to find out why […]
Hans Rosling of the BCC’s statistical team tells us we don’t have to panic – world population is levelling out, and will stabilise at about 11 billion. The size of the average family the world over is now 2.5 children, as the news spreads that the larger the family, the poorer and lower life expectancy. […]
This is the title of a story I once wrote (back in 2001 when such things were just a gleam in a geneticist’s eye.) Do it, do it! I cried then, even as I quaver now: it can be done, and is being done. If you’re a fertile young woman, and any employer is offering […]