Name: Wynter's review of Empty Planet by John Ibbitson
Item: Empty Planet
Rating: 5
Author: Wynter

John Ibbitson

Darrell Bricker

**A SUNDAY TIMES MUST-READ** '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.

The Shock of Global Population Decline

Empty Planet

Jackie Luo

Wynter

Contrary to the very popular doomsayer warning, we should not worry about the overpopulation, but rather take heed of the alarming trend in declining fertility rate on the global scale. Soon enough the overwhelming boom will reach its peak and the numbers will slowly start counting backwards. For some nations, like China, the change will come like a crashing down avalanche. For some it will be a slow trickle. But nevermind the pace, the reality is that most countries will end up with the largest number of elderly than ever before. This will in turn take a toll on the social systems, economy, innovation, etc., leaving our children and our children’s children in a world of uncertain jobs and financial struggle. While I do think that the authors paint too rosy of a picture about Canada’s immigration tolerance and integration, we are fairing better than a lot of other societies. Excellent antidote to the cacophony of singleminded prophets.

Bryan Alexander

This is a powerful, very accessible, and at times very surprising book.

Why is Empty Planet a surprise? Because for a couple of generations many people dreaded human overpopulation as a planetary challenge of the highest order. As I wrote in 2017,
Back in the 1960s and 70s many people feared overpopulation, and for good reasons. Human population was rising. Serious research, most notably The Limits To Growth (1972; based on a powerful computer simulation), suggested crises to come, ranging from overcrowding to starvation. Science fiction and popular culture echoed this with novels like Stand on Zanzibar (John Brunner, 1968), books like The Population Bomb (1968), and movies like Soylent Green (1973) and Z.P.G. (1972).(I remember clearly reading the liner notes for a piece of electronic-ish music around 1975. I was about eight, and the album cover back described music for an overpopulated future, when the earth was covered by giant buildings, packed tightly with far, far too many humans. I wish that memory was clear enough to include a title or composer.)Readers will have noticed that we did not arrive in such an overcrowded future, despite the deplorable appearance of a drink called Soylent. That's because, in part, we were terrified of such a scenario, and responded by altering our behaviors.

That huge, history-transforming change is what Bricker and Ibbitson ably explain.

In brief, Empty Planet describes a multi-decade, multi-continental shift in human life, whereby we produce fewer and fewer children. A growing number of populations are actually spawning "below replacement level" - i.e., fewer children than parents, below two for every couple.

The reasons are multiple, including advances in medical science, public health, and the education of girls and women. Smaller families means fewer demands on fertile people to produce more kids (50; 111-112). Teen pregnancy rates have plummeted in developed nations (95-6). Pop culture now presents interesting lives with fewer or no children (135). Female sterilization, increasingly voluntary in nations like Brazil and India, further reducing total fertility (136).

Implications: national leaders can view underpopulation as a security threat, and might not react well (62). Creativity and invention may slow down, as "it's hard to innovate when your society is old" (83). Some nations will have to deal with a drop or collapse in their working-age, tax-paying population. Some cultures and languages may fade away, if they dwindle below certain levels (198, 205). Carbon emissions may start to decline once total population turns around (230). Wars might decline along with the primary war-fighting population, leading to a "geriatric peace." (232) Politics can lag behind reality, as, for example, Latinx immigration into the US has declined for more than a decade, as those nations have seen their fertility rates fall, but, alas, Trump (149).

And migration politics become difficult if not heinous. Bricker and Ibbitson are unabashedly pro-immigrant, urging under-reproducing societies to more generously welcome populations from elsewhere (148, 209).In the rest of the developed world, principally the United States and Canada, immigration will become the sole driver of population growth starting sometime in the 2020s. (151)In response, some nations may try to encourage more reproduction. Bricker and Ibbitson are skeptical about the efficacy of such moves (examples from Sweden, Singapore), finding them expensive, politically fragile, and accomplishing little (72).

Although I do recommend this book highly, I have some questions and concerns. The point about innovation and age; have the authors received charges of agism? To what extent are voluntary reductions in child-bearing the province of the wealthy and well-educated, leaving out the poor and rural? The authors touch on this (122), but I'd like to see more. I'm curious about the authors' thoughts on the role of media, since they see South American tv driving women's decisions there, but find some Indian women immune to Bollywood's romances (171).

Once more: an important and engaging book for our time.

Jackie Luo &
Empty Planet by John Ibbitson

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