Empty Planet

The Shock of Global Population Decline

Darrell Bricker, John Ibbitson

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English

Robinson
06 February 2020

Migration, immigration & emigration; Population & demography; Geopolitics; Human geography

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*A SUNDAY TIMES MUST-READ
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'Riveting and vitally important' - Steven Pinker

'A gripping narrative of a world on the cusp of profound change' - Anjana Ahuja, New Statesman

EMPTY PLANET offers a radical, provocative argument that the global population will soon begin to decline, dramatically reshaping the social, political and economic landscape.

For half a century, statisticians, pundits and politicians have warned that a burgeoning planetary population will soon overwhelm the earth's resources. But a growing number of experts are sounding a different kind of alarm. Rather than growing exponentially, they argue, the global population is headed for a steep decline.

Throughout history, depopulation was the product of catastrophe: ice ages, plagues, the collapse of civilizations. This time, however, we're thinning ourselves deliberately, by choosing to have fewer babies than we need to replace ourselves. In much of the developed and developing world, that decline is already underway, as urbanisation, women's empowerment, and waning religiosity lead to smaller and smaller families. In EMPTY PLANET, Ibbitson and Bricker travel from South Florida to Sao Paulo, Seoul to Nairobi, Brussels to Delhi to Beijing, drawing on a wealth of research and firsthand reporting to illustrate the dramatic consequences of this population decline - and to show us why the rest of the developing world will soon join in.

They find that a smaller global population will bring with it a number of benefits: fewer workers will command higher wages; good jobs will prompt innovation; the environment will improve; the risk of famine will wane; and falling birthrates in the developing world will bring greater affluence and autonomy for women. But enormous disruption lies ahead, too. We can already see the effects in Europe and parts of Asia, as aging populations and worker shortages weaken the economy and impose crippling demands on healthcare and vital social services. There may be earth-shaking implications on a geopolitical scale as well.

EMPTY PLANET is a hugely important book for our times. Captivating and persuasive, it is a story about urbanisation, access to education and the empowerment of women to choose their own destinies. It is about the secularisation of societies and the vital role that immigration has to play in our futures.

Rigorously researched and deeply compelling, EMPTY PLANET offers a vision of a future that we can no longer prevent - but that we can shape, if we choose to.

By: Darrell Bricker, John Ibbitson
Imprint: Robinson
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 196mm, Width: 126mm, Spine: 24mm
Weight: 212g
ISBN: 9781472142979
ISBN 10: 1472142977
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 06 February 2020
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Darrell Bricker (Author) Darrell Bricker is CEO of Ipsos Global Public Affairs. He is the author of five books, most recently The Big Shift. While too many believe that numbers are boring, Bricker believes they are incredibly useful and interesting. The problem lies in that people who are good with numbers tend not to be great storytellers. His writing has always focused on telling stories that break down the barrier between numbers and broader public understanding. There's always a story or tragedy and romance in the data. Bricker sees it as his job to find the story and tell it. John Ibbitson (Author) In a career spanning three decades, John Ibbitson has worked as a reporter and columnist for the Ottawa Citizen, Southam News, the National Post and, since 1999, the Globe and Mail, where he became Chief Political Writer in 2012 and Writer at Large in 2015. He has written eighteen books, including The Landing which won the 2008 Governer General's Award for Children's Literature. His non-fiction books have been nominated for the National Newspaper Award, the Donnier Prize, the Twillium Book Award and the City of Toronto Book Award.

Reviews for Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline

A fascinating study - Sunday Times A bold thesis, but the authors are convincing . . . this briskly readable book demands urgent attention - Mail on Sunday The everything you know is wrong genre has become tedious, but this book is riveting and vitally important. With eye-opening data and lively writing, Bricker and Ibbitson show that the world is radically changing in a way that few people appreciate [Bricker and Ibbitson] have written a sparkling and enlightening guide to the contemporary world of fertility as small family sizes and plunging rates of child-bearing go global. - Globe and Mail Bricker and Ibbitson work their way around the globe in pacey, sometimes breathless journalistic prose, although their argument is refreshingly clear and well balanced . . . - Literary Review The authors combine a mastery of social-science research with enough journalistic flair to convince fair-minded readers of a simple fact: fertility is falling faster than most experts can readily explain, driven by persistent forces . . . Empty Planet succeeds as a long-overdue skewering of population-explosion fearmongers - Wall Street Journal A highly readable, controversial insight into a world rarely thought about - a world of depopulation under ubiquitous urbanisation While the global population is swelling well over 7.5 billion people today, birth rates have nonetheless already begun dropping around the world. Past population declines have historically been driven by natural disasters or disease - the Toba supervolcano, Black Death or Spanish Flu - but this coming slump will be of our own demographic making. In this fascinating and thought-provoking book, Bricker and Ibbitson compellingly argue why by the end of this century the problem won't be overpopulation but a rapidly shrinking global populace, and how we might have to adapt