2. Britain ranks 18 th in terms of the worlds population Britain is relatively densely populated in comparison to other countries The British population has risen by 10 million since 1950 It is expected to grow by 6.1 million to 65.7 million by 2031 Rising immigration is the main reason for Britain's increased population Increasing population in Britain

3. Birth rate is also remains far higher than in Southern and central Europe with an average 1.7 children born per woman. There were 695,600 births in the UK in 2003 a birth rate of 11.7 per 1000 of the population. Projections suggest that this will remain relatively constant at around 680,000 over the next 40 years.

4. Is Britain an ageing population? Changes in fertility patterns, and more recent declines in mortality rates at older ages, has caused the UK population to become 'aged'. The average age of the UK population rose from about 34 years in 1971 to nearly 39 in 2004. The proportion of the population aged 65 and over increased from 13 per cent to 16 per cent and the proportion below the age of 16 decreased from 25 per cent to 19 per cent.

5. Furthermore, the older population is ageing. Within the population aged 65 and over, the proportion of people aged 85 and over has increased from 7 per cent in 1971 to 12 per cent in 2004 and their numbers in the UK have grown by 84 per cent between 1981 and 2004, to over 1.1m. Population ageing will continue during the first half of this century, since the proportion of the population aged 65 and over will increase as the large numbers of people born after the Second World War and during the 1960s baby boom become older. The proportion of population at working ages is set to fall as the baby boomers move into retirement and are replaced by the smaller numbers of people born in each year since the 1960s.

6. Population estimates UK population grows to more than 60 million Population:by gender,age mid 2005 In mid-2005 the UK was home to 60.2 million people, of which 50.4 million lived in England. The average age was 38.8 years, an increase on 1971 when it was 34.1 years. In mid-2005 approximately one in five people in the UK were aged under 16 and one in six people were aged 65 or over. The UK has a growing population. It grew by 375,100 people in the year to mid-2005 (0.6 per cent). The UK population increased by 7.7 per cent since 1971, from 55.9 million. Growth has been faster in more recent years. Between mid-1991 and mid-2004 the population grew by an annual rate of 0.3 per cent and the average growth per year since mid-2001 has been 0.5 per cent.