The number of people who die in Britain this year is set to exceed those born in the country, the Resolution Foundation said, in what the think tank described as a permanent shift that will increase the UK’s dependency on migration.

Britain will see a shortfall in births in 2026, Resolution Foundation projected as part of its annual economic outlook released on Monday. That gap will increase “by an ever-widening margin, forever closing a chapter in the demographics” of Britain that stretches back to at least the start of the 20th century, the research institution said.

While the number of deaths in the UK exceeded births in 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and again in 2023, the native population grew slightly in each of the past two years, Resolution Foundation estimated. From 2026 onwards, any population growth “is set to come from international net migration,” the think tank said. (Bloomberg)