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Where do babies come from? Immigration critics don’t seem to know

Shane Wright Senior economics correspondent October 16, 2025 — 4.00am Advertisement

Bridgerton fans will remember the scene.

Lady Featherington, hopeful of a male heir to secure the family’s place in Mayfair and society, discovers the two daughters she managed to marry off have next to no idea of the process required to produce a child.

Sometimes I believe economists, and plenty of politicians, are almost as befuddled as Prudence and Philippa when it comes to the importance of demography when it comes to economic policy.

Illustration by Dionne Gain

Many of the public figures debating immigration and the nation’s population seem as ignorant about babies and their source

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