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rfmcdonaldAs Jacques Vallin et Graziella Caselli's May 1999 comparative study "Quand l'Angleterre rattrapait la France" makes clear, England (and Wales) quickly came to exceed France in population by the first decade of the 20th century mainly because of a significantly greater excess of births over deaths. Although the French population was notoriously not fecund, England's 19th century population surge was unique, barely if at all matched by growth in parts of contemporary Germany and the Low Countries.
For whatever reason, despite being at the cutting edge of the Industrial Revolution, despite having arguably higher living standards and the
other prerequisites for a fall in births, England was late to the demographic transition. This lateness had fateful consequences. At the beginning of the 19th century, the England at the heart of the United Kingdom was less populous than any of the territorial monarchies of continental Europe. At the beginning of the 20th century, this England was not only as populous as its French rival, but it constituted the unquestioned anchor of the United Kingdom and also provided more than enough emigrants to settle its settlement colonies quite thoroughly.
Let's say that England enters the demographic transition earlier for whatever reason. Instead of growing by 360% as OTL, the English population instead gows by 250%, the same as contemporary Germany. Without considering migration, this gives us an English population circa 1901 just short of 23 million, almost 13 million short of its actual population of 32.5. What impact does an English population two-thirds the size of OTL have on the United Kingdom, the British Empire, and the wider world? We'll certainly have fewer English emigrants to the colonies. Quite possibly, if there's a conceivable role for more immigrants many (or most?) of the Irish and Scots who went overseas OTL might end up moving to the industrializing labour-hungry cities of England. This will have interesting ramifications on ethnic relations inside the British Isles, not to mention on the areas that received this immigrants OTL. This world's Canada will be less populous but will also have a significantly higher proportion of Francophones; this world's Australia might well have more and earlier Germans; this world's South Africa will be hard-pressed to control the Boer republics; this world's New Zealand might not exist at all.
Thoughts?
UPDATE (11:00 PM) : This is an expansion of a what-if posted earlier to SHWI.
For whatever reason, despite being at the cutting edge of the Industrial Revolution, despite having arguably higher living standards and the
other prerequisites for a fall in births, England was late to the demographic transition. This lateness had fateful consequences. At the beginning of the 19th century, the England at the heart of the United Kingdom was less populous than any of the territorial monarchies of continental Europe. At the beginning of the 20th century, this England was not only as populous as its French rival, but it constituted the unquestioned anchor of the United Kingdom and also provided more than enough emigrants to settle its settlement colonies quite thoroughly.
Let's say that England enters the demographic transition earlier for whatever reason. Instead of growing by 360% as OTL, the English population instead gows by 250%, the same as contemporary Germany. Without considering migration, this gives us an English population circa 1901 just short of 23 million, almost 13 million short of its actual population of 32.5. What impact does an English population two-thirds the size of OTL have on the United Kingdom, the British Empire, and the wider world? We'll certainly have fewer English emigrants to the colonies. Quite possibly, if there's a conceivable role for more immigrants many (or most?) of the Irish and Scots who went overseas OTL might end up moving to the industrializing labour-hungry cities of England. This will have interesting ramifications on ethnic relations inside the British Isles, not to mention on the areas that received this immigrants OTL. This world's Canada will be less populous but will also have a significantly higher proportion of Francophones; this world's Australia might well have more and earlier Germans; this world's South Africa will be hard-pressed to control the Boer republics; this world's New Zealand might not exist at all.
Thoughts?
UPDATE (11:00 PM) : This is an expansion of a what-if posted earlier to SHWI.
