But it's also necessary.

As the baby boomers age, our population will become disproportionately elderly, with a dependency ratio of about 2.6 people aged between 15 and 64 for every person aged 65 and over in 2036, and 2.31 in 2061.

This "pig-in-the-python", as it's been evocatively described [pdf] by the Royal Society, will pass - but a productive workforce and more young people will certainly help it along.

The generation gap is considerably less marked amongst the Pasifika and Maori populations (which also have higher fertility rates), which means it's even more important to tackle issues like unemployment, poverty and obesity in which they're over-represented.

But with fewer women having children, the fertility rate is currently 2.0, only just above the "replacement level" necessary for the population to replace itself in the long-term without migration.

By 2030 it's predicted to eclipse five million, and so much of that growth is dependent on migration from other countries.

That change is already visible in Auckland, where half a million people were born overseas, and is expected to continue as migration encourages migration: people are more likely to move to places where they know others and where their culture is established.

The most rapid growth has been in the city's Asian population, with one in four Aucklanders of Asian ethnicity.

That's predicted to be one in three by 2021.

Dr Andrew Butcher, director of research at the Asia New Zealand Foundation, points out that statistic encompasses "multiple languages, beliefs, cultures, cuisines and all the rest".

"This isn't a homogenous group of people, and it's not a discrete entity of people, either," he says. "There are increasing numbers of Asians who are multi-ethnic … so there's this great diversity." Continue reading

Sources

• The Wireless
• Image: Found Directory

"It was an historic occasion because it marked the first episcopal ordination of an Asian-born priest in Australia in the Latin rite. I asked the question then, "When will it happen here?", pointing to the growing influence of Asian migrants in the Church in New Zealand, including in the priesthood.

"Washington CNS reports "Half of U.S. parishes celebrate four or more weekend Masses each week, and nearly one in three (29 percent) has Mass in a language other than English at least once a month. But the Masses are being celebrated by a corps of priests that declined by 11 percent in the past decade."

"One question that is being tackled in different dioceses in different ways and with different timeframes is the idea of merging or amalgamating or clustering parishes, and more importantly their priestly resources. If you have three parishes in an area with six Masses between them, can you make do with just two priests? And do you still need three churches for those Masses? Could a parish be closed down and sold or used for another purpose?

"This will become even more urgent if more and more immigrants — mostly Asian — continue to flock into New Zealand and bring the Faith with them. We know priestly numbers are dropping. And, between 2001 and 2006, the number of Catholics based on Census figures showed that the Church in growing, at least in those areas where immigration continues to be strong.

"How do you convince someone who's been going to the same parish since they were six, got married there or buried their parents from that church that closing it down is a good idea?

"That's the $64,000 question…

Full Story: The Catholic Soapbox