How population characteristics shape our world, and how we can influence them

Jennifer D. Sciubba, currently President and CEO of Population Reference Bureau, is a political demographer. She is a leading expert in how population trends and composition affect politics and social relations -- and vice versa. This is what makes her analysis more interesting than your run-of-the-mill books on demography. My own background was originally in population geography, so the fundamentals that Sciubba explains in the book are very familiar to me.

Beyond those fundamentals, there is a lot of interesting and insightful in the book. For example, Sciubba points out that neither rapid population growth nor aging are per se not inherently problematic. Instead, their impact depends on the governance, political and economic circumstances. While fertility has dropped to below replacement levles, resulting in population shrinkage without immigration in most parts of the world (including Europe, North America, Japan, China, even Brazil), it remains very high in most of Africa where the societies' ability to accommodate the large cohorts of new entrants into labor force are generally weak. Sub-Saharan Africa contines to be the place with the largest growth in population. Almost 90% of world's population growth until mid-century will take place in lower-middle and low-income countries. This will pose challenges in terms of political stability and pressures to migrate. Sciubba also points out that it is not to poorest people from the poorest countries who migrate, because migration requires a certain amount of financial resources as well as skills to navigate the complex challenges of international migration. This fact casts doubt on the oft-heard justification for foreign aid to help people where they are, so that they will be discouraged to move.

A feature that makes Sciubba's book a lively read is her ample use of historical and current examples to demonstrate the more technical or theoretical points. They range from the impacts of China's one-child policy to the Rwandan genocide; from the relationship between aging societies and peace, to implications of Nigeria's youthful population. (I have to point out an odd slip: At one point, Sciubba places the southern African country of Botswana in the Sahel.)

Although Sciubba mentions climate change in several places, as acting as a stressor and as a driver of migration, it features fairly little in the book. That of course could be the focus of a separate book in itself.

A worthwhile and entertaining read, I'd recommend this book to anyone interesting in how population trends, fertility, mortality and migration shape society all over the world.