Small is beautiful and we may be better off more or less as we are

While no one likes to think people are fleeing their own country, an increase in Ireland’s population by more than 50% in the next half-century might be more of a threat than an opportunity

SOME of Eamon de Valera’s ideas were better than others. He might have spectacularly failed in his efforts to increase the Irish population but it was a noble endeavour. Leaving aside whether six would ever go into 26, Dev understood that in the 20th century bigger meant better.

But are Eurostat’s predictions of population growth in the future something to welcome — or to fear?

In case you missed it, the EU’s statistical office has published projections for the future size of each of the 27 member states plus Switzerland and Norway. If they are right, Ireland’s population will return by 2060 to levels not seen since the Famine — around 6.7 million people compared to 4.4m today. The Long Fellow would have been delighted.

Only Cyprus will see stronger growth than Ireland while Britain and France will overtake Germany. The big ‘losers’ will be countries such as Poland, Bulgaria and the Baltics. Taken as a whole, in just seven years the annual number of deaths willoutnumber annual births and the EU’s population will only rise because we suck in Africans, Asians and Latin Americans.

Needless to say, our eastern partners are down in the mouth about it all. Bulgaria’s numbers could fall by as much as one-third while the Germans, in particular, whose birthrate is spectacularly low, worry that their pending decline will increasingly be factored into geopolitical discussions.

For politicians, you see, population is a virility test. Pakistan, for instance, might be poor but it has lots of people — enough to pay for a nuclear weapons programme and staff a big army — so it counts for much more in the world’s councils than, say, Qatar which is the richest country per head of population but has just 1.5 million citizens.

Large economies have advantages. They are better placed to absorb shocks in different regions. If one part of the US goes into recession, for instance, others may still boom. Not only can national taxes assist areas that are suffering but Americans can move more easily to work in states that have jobs on offer than others can between countries. Bigness also brings certain efficiencies: a large market, undivided by customs duties and united by a single set of standards and cultural tastes, produces economies of scale.

A growing population has always been seen as a signal of success: Indians love to boast they will overtake China in the not too distant future. It even used to be argued that certain countries like Ireland or Belgium were simply too small to be viable entities. The same argument is made against independence for Northern Ireland — by unionists and nationalists alike.

But taking pride in the sheer size of your country is increasingly anachronistic. While no one likes to think people are fleeing their own country, an increase in Ireland’s population by more than 50% in the next 50 years might be more of a threat than an opportunity.

Didn’t Athens have just 200,000 souls at its peak? Might not small really be rather beautiful?

Compare today’s world with that of 100 years ago. The number of independent countries has mushroomed from around 60 to nearly 200 and half of them have smaller populations than Paris. The end of colonialism meant dozens of new states in Africa. The collapse of the Soviet Union created 15 more — to Moscow’s chagrin as we are seeing.

Yugoslavia has spawned six or seven successor states, depending how you look at Kosovo. The global move to democracy may indirectly have encouraged separatism: democracies find it harder than dictatorships to balance the demands of minorities and majorities. Only the Germanys have gone the other way.

Economics explains much of this. Despite the advantages countries like America and Japan have, most of the big ones — China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Bangladesh — are still quite poor. On the other hand, almost all the world’s richest states are tiny by comparison. Quite simply, the drawbacks of being small are shrinking as more people care about prosperity than about standing tall in the world. Let’s face it, in terms of Olympic medals relative to population, the real winner in Beijing was not China but little Jamaica.

Small countries require small bureaucracies, so there is less waste. This, in turn, reduces the need for taxation and stimulates enterprise. Now markets are more open, small countries can specialise. Technological changes have cut the cost of transport and of conveying information over large distances making them more competitive.

Big countries can duplicate these advantages but only if they govern themselves like a confederation of small ones. The US, for example, has a highly devolved system of administration which allows local communities to elect their school boards, their sheriffs and so on. But the US, founded in a popular revolt against a remote government, is in both senses the big exception. Generally speaking, large states become centralised over time.

The other argument against size is that people also seem to like sharing their country with folks like them: small countries tend to be the most homogeneous (Japan being the exception). This makes them less prone to civil strife or dictatorship.

It also means higher levels of social trust — which may be why small Scandinavian states are willing to spend so much on health and education. No wonder Scottish and Catalonian separatists take heart from examples like Ireland and Denmark: the costs of going it alone are probably smaller than they have been for at least the past couple of centuries.

THE question is, will Ireland enjoy its independence quite so much if it’s half as big again? Will some of the advantages of being small be lost?

A declining population in eastern Europe also tends to be synonymous with an ageing population. Russia, for instance, is emptying and dying. But while the number of people in Ireland actively employed will decrease in proportion to the number of pensioners if trends continue, the burden will not be nearly so great a problem here as elsewhere. One in 10 might be aged over 80 but overall Ireland will still be a ‘young’ country because of its relatively high birthrate (more than two children per woman) and because it attracts so many migrants who, in turn, tend to be the keenest on making babies.

Nor is Ireland densely populated. There are only about 60 people per square kilometre as against 400 in The Netherlands or 6,500 in Hong Kong. Irish people might just have to get used to living in the midlands — or else exchanging their sea views for sea glimpses.

But even if there is the room for more people in Ireland, admittedly in boggier areas, will an extra two or 2.5 million people improve the quality of Irish life?

Will life become more pleasurable, less anxious, more satisfying? How much worse can the traffic be? Do people really want to give so much of their money to the Revenue to fund even more roads, never mind more hospitals and schools to supplement those already filled to bursting? Given that Ireland is never going to be a world power, maybe four million people is enough.