Over-populated? Not for long...

Empty Planet: The Shock Of Global Population Decline Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson Robinson €28 ★★★★☆

Here are some things you probably know about the global population: it’s growing, that growth is exponential and unstoppable, and this is a very bad thing. Not so, say Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson here. Although the UN forecasts that the population will increase from seven billion now to 11billion by the end of this century, Bricker and Ibbitson think that we’ll actually reach peak people between 2040 and 2060, hitting the nine billion mark and then going into decline. And unlike previous population contractions, this won’t be caused by disease or famine: ‘This time, we are culling ourselves; we are choosing to become fewer.’

It’s a bold thesis, but the authors are convincing. Many developed nations are already well below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman, and there are two key reasons. First, as people move from the country to the city, children go from being free labour for the farm to expensive (if cherished) drags on the family purse. Secondly, when women have rights and education, they almost always choose to have fewer babies – or none. So given that urbanisation and women’s emancipation are increasingly the rule, plunging birth rates are also becoming the rule.

Fewer people means less consumption of natural resources and lower carbon emissions. But it also means a vanishing of workers, a shrinking economy, pressure on health services and social care, and – for the rising number of older people who reach their last years childless – grief and loneliness. If a country can’t make enough people, its only answer is to import them, but public anxiety about immigration has left politicians unable to make the necessary arguments. In any case, the writers argue, soon there won’t be any surplus population left to move around in search of better lives.

A few of their assumptions seem a little shaky. Climate change seems likely to exert a huge ‘push’ force on people whose homes become unliveably hot, dry or flooded, but there’s no mention of that here. And women’s lib doesn’t advance inevitably. In China, for example, fears of a collapsing population have inspired government policy designed to get women back in the home and pregnant. But even if the picture isn’t exactly as they sketch, this briskly readable book demands urgent attention: just how are we going to live in a shrinking world?