Kinder von Hollywood-Stars am schnellsten wachsende soziale Gruppe in USA

kojote/LOS ANGELES, 17.01.2011 - Nachkommen von Hollywood-Stars sind die am schnellsten wachsende soziale Gruppe in den USA.

Laut einer aktuellen Studie des renommierten Demografie-Forschers Dr. Ruprecht F. Brunstein ist die Geburtenrate von US-Promis sogar noch höher als die von Mormonen. Im Jahr 2030 werde jeder zweite US-Bürger das Kind eines Hollywood-Stars sein, erklärte Dr. Brunstein in einem Interview mit dem Magazin “Starchild”. Die restlichen 50% der US-Bevölkerung würden dann je zur Hälfte aus Drogentherapeuten und Paparazzi bestehen.

SINGAPORE (AFP)--Singapore needs young immigrants to save its economy from long-term decline as a result of a falling birth rate, elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew said in remarks published Wednesday.
"At these low birth rates, we will rapidly age and shrink," the 87-year-old Lee said in comments released to the local media after the government disclosed that the city-state's birth rate fell to a record low in 2010.
"So we need young immigrants. Otherwise our economy will slow down, like the Japanese economy. We will have a less dynamic and less thriving Singapore. This is not the future for our children and grandchildren," he said.
Lee's defense of immigration came amid increasing criticism in web forums and local media directed at foreigners, who now make up more than 20% of the population of five million.
Most of the foreign workers and immigrants come from China, Southeast Asia and India, reflecting Singapore's own ethnic mix.
Lee stepped down as prime minister in 1990 after leading the city-state since 1959, and he remains a powerful figure as an adviser to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
Lee said immigrants should be welcomed and integrated.
"The first generation will take some time to integrate, but their children will be completely Singaporean," he said.
"They will increase our population and talent pool. Singapore will be vibrant and prosperous, not declining and aging," he said.
The resident fertility rate--or number of babies born per woman--dipped to 1.16 in 2010, down from the previous record low of 1.22 in 2009, Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng, who coordinates population policy, said Monday.
The rate, which has fallen as more couples choose to have just one child and more people opt to remain single, is well below the 2.1 babies per woman needed for the population to replenish itself naturally.
Singapore rolled out the welcome mat for foreign workers during the 2004-07 economic boom.
However, after the 2008 global financial crisis, the government took a fresh look following complaints from citizens that foreigners were increasingly competing for jobs, housing, medical care and even space on metro trains.
The inflow of foreign workers has slowed, and full citizens were given more social and other benefits over foreigners.

January 19, 2011 02:20 ET (07:20 GMT)

As another year gets under way, though, it is many of the east Asians who feel threatened, as governments from Singapore to Tokyo contemplate falling fertility rates and shrinking populations, and urge their reluctant young - in the most delicate, culturally appropriate way, of course - to get together and procreate.
Last year the number of babies born in Taiwan was half that of 10 years ago, partly due to the inauspicious lunar year of the Tiger just about to end, but continuing a trend that will hasten the ageing and decline of the island's population. Taiwan's fertility rate, the average number of children born to its women in their lifetime, fell to 0.91 last year, far below the rate of 2.1 needed to sustain population size.
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In mainland China, population is still growing and will peak about 2030 at somewhere between 1.39 billion and 1.46 billion.
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Growth in labour supply is already tapering. As we have seen from strikes and worker suicides over the last year, young people are less and less willing to ''eat bitterness'' and work in sweatshop factories for low wages. In five years' time the number of people in the 16-to-60 working age bracket will start to fall.
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By 2025 the Chinese will be outnumbered by about 1.4 billion Indians, whose numbers will grow to about 1.7 billion mid-century. The Indian population profile is much younger, giving rise to expectations of an automatic ''demographic dividend'' in a low aged-to-working age burden for the economy.

But as Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of the IT giant Infosys, wrote in the Hindustan Times recently, can the dividend be cashed? ''Over the next two decades India will have to work hard at equipping its hundreds of millions of young people with the skills they need to participate in the economy, with jobs to be productive in, and with social protections to sustain them in the long term,'' he said.

Taipei, Jan. 14 (CNA) President Ma Ying-jeou's alert last week that the low birth rate in Taiwan has become a "national security issue" was right on target as the problem could ultimately change Taiwan's social and national landscape, scholars said Friday.

"The Taiwan government should try to tackle the issue head-on, " said Chang Kuo-cheng, a researcher at Taiwan Thinktank. "It is also a good time for Taiwan to ponder the question: What kind of country it wants to be?"

The low birth rate also signals a potential financial crisis for Taiwan, said Chuang Chi-ming, a professor at National Taipei University of Education.
The CEPD estimated in 2006 that Taiwan's total population will fall to eight million by 2206, a little more than one third of the current 23 million, Chuang noted.

However, given the current low birth rate, the drop could be even more dramatic, he said.

The society, education system, public infrastructure, national security and national finance of a country with eight million people are vastly different than in a country with 23 million people, he said.

Sidney Westley, a Communications Specialist in the Research Program at the East-West Center, said, "In each of these societies, fertility has dropped very steeply, (which) I think (is) surprising demographers. It has fallen faster and fallen to a lower rate than people would probably have anticipated 15 or 20 years ago."
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The study found that Asian women are putting off starting a family amid gains in education, employment and living standards, combined with dramatic breakthroughs in health and family-planning technology.