The population of Venice, Italy is dwindling, and is now below 60,000. A mock funeral for the city was also the impetus for a DNA project on the origins of Venetian families.
One reason is the high cost of living in the city, and tourism is also taking the blame as food and housing costs rise and people move to the mainland. The number of residents has dropped by 66% since the 1950s.
Some residents say that a house in Venice costs twice as much as a similar one elsewhere.
A recent event highlighted the situation with a mock funeral. Activists claim Venice is a ghost town, populated only by tourists, although the city calls the its death premature.
A city demographer said the low number ignores 120,000 people on Murano and Lido Beach islands, while admitting the population had decreased in the central historic section of Venice.
On a brighter note, which should add to DNA databases, the event was used to collect DNA samples from Venetians to discover more about the origins of central and western European populations. Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Massachusetts) scientists hope to take some 5,000 DNA swabs to learn more about the Venetians' origins.
Several sources covered the story, including BBC and AFP.
Showing posts with label Demographics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Demographics. Show all posts
18 November 2009
22 May 2008
UK: Jewish population on the rise
Jewish genealogists in the UK may have bigger family trees to compile, as that country's Jewish population is on the rise.
According to a BBC story, University of Manchester researchers say the increase is due to the size of ultra-Orthodox families. The UK's Jewish population peaked at 500,000 at the start of World War I, hit a low of 275,000 in 2005, but has increased to 280,000 in 2008, making it the fifth largest Jewish population in the world.
Figures were based on UK census data and monitoring of Jewish births by academics.
According to Dr Yaakov Wise - of Manchester University's Centre for Jewish Studies - half of all Jewish children younger than 5 in Greater Manchester are ultra-Orthodox. Secular Jewish women have an average of only 1.65 children; the UK average is 1.8. In the ultra-Orthodox community, families have an average of nearly seven children and community elders can have hundreds of descendants. Wise says nearly three of every four Jewish babies are born in the Orthodox community.
In London, this segment of the community is 18%, up from less than 10% in the early 1990s.
According to Wise, the ancestors of these families came to Britain since WWII, as the result of such historic events as the 1956 Hungarian uprising and the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Read more here.
According to a BBC story, University of Manchester researchers say the increase is due to the size of ultra-Orthodox families. The UK's Jewish population peaked at 500,000 at the start of World War I, hit a low of 275,000 in 2005, but has increased to 280,000 in 2008, making it the fifth largest Jewish population in the world.
Figures were based on UK census data and monitoring of Jewish births by academics.
According to Dr Yaakov Wise - of Manchester University's Centre for Jewish Studies - half of all Jewish children younger than 5 in Greater Manchester are ultra-Orthodox. Secular Jewish women have an average of only 1.65 children; the UK average is 1.8. In the ultra-Orthodox community, families have an average of nearly seven children and community elders can have hundreds of descendants. Wise says nearly three of every four Jewish babies are born in the Orthodox community.
In London, this segment of the community is 18%, up from less than 10% in the early 1990s.
According to Wise, the ancestors of these families came to Britain since WWII, as the result of such historic events as the 1956 Hungarian uprising and the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Read more here.
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