No One Left: Why the World Needs More Children

by Paul Morland

A population calamity is unfolding before our eyes. It started in parts of the developed world and is spreading to the four corners of the globe. There are just too few babies being born for humanity to replace itself.

Leading demographer Paul Morland argues that the consequences of this promise to be calamitous. Labour shortages, pensions crises, ballooning what is currently happening in South Korea – which faces population decline of more than 85% within just two generations - threatens to engulf us all, and sooner than we think. In the developed world we may be able temporarily to stave off the worst of its effects with immigration, but many countries, including those the immigrants come from, will get old before they get rich.

No One Left charts this future, explains its causes and suggests what might be done. Unless we radically change our attitudes towards parenthood and embrace a new progressive pro-natalism, argues Morland, we face disaster.

Genres: Nonfiction, Economics

260 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 4, 2024

About the author

Dr Paul Morland is associate research fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London and a renowned authority on demography. A French speaker with dual German and British citizenship, Paul was educated at Oxford University, and was awarded his PhD from the University of London.

Reviews

[Alfred · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Good Coverage of the Coming Population Crash

I thought this was much better than Empty Planet, another book about the drop in fertility rates across the globe. I still felt as though there was more to be said though. There are some suggestions as to why fertility has dropped in various counties, but the factors appear to be different depending on the country.

Still, this book was fairly realistic about the results of population decline and the inability of immigration to solve the problem. Pensions are funded by the young for the old. There are consistently less young, and people are living longer so the older demographic is growing. Old people tend to get sick and have injuries more frequently than young people by a significant margin. Will my generation, the millennials, even get a state pension? I'm not so sure. Will there still be free healthcare in my home, the UK? It's difficult to see how.

Many are quick to suggest that technological advancements will solve these problems, just as there are those who claim climate change will be solved in the same way. However, "Modernity and Cultural Decline" by Sarraf, Feltham and Woodley of Menie have left me with strong pessimism towards this proposed solution.

[Gemma · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m fascinated by demography, so when I saw this book reviewed in the press I purchased it immediately. However I didn’t particularly enjoy it and have been trying to put my finger on why.

As a woman who has always been ambivalent about having children I’m probably its intended audience. However, Morland does nothing to convince me. Firstly, its doom-mongering is irritating. Yes, certain countries like the UK are going to experience significant fiscal challenges in the future as the elderly population grows and the working population reduces. However on a global scale, population isn’t even predicated to peak until the turn of the century. We can’t even begin to imagine what scientific and technological advances will look like to the human race in 75 years time. The demise of the human race as he forebodes is far more likely to be the product of war and/or global destabilisation.

Secondly, the underlying feeling that the problem is being squarely laid at the feet of women and their insatiable desire to be educated. For that matter, did he interview any women? Surely quantitative data should be backed up with qualitative. The chapter about women was disappointingly short. I could write swathes of detail to the reasons that I or many of my contemporaries have had either no children or one child. Very little of it was addressed.

Thirdly, the way he bats away environmental concerns with, essentially, a ‘technology will fix it’ attitude. All in all, an incredibly interesting subject matter delivered without the curiosity to get to the crux of the matter.

I quote a section from the last paragraph; ‘the natural, unconstrained and uncontrolled reproduction that has marked almost all of human history has been upended by urbanisation, education, rising living standards, the mastering of technology for controlling fertility, and the allure and excitement of many alternative projects.’ Personally, I prefer all of the above to its alternatives.

[gul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Morland is a demographer so I guess he can’t really be faulted too much for failing to explore the fundamental moral question as to whether it is permissible to instrumentalise children (and women) for the ends of nation building and population increase…

[Ben Bergonzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Time and again reading this book I felt the author was pointing out truths I had never thought of before, but which were proven by what I had empirically noticed. There were far more children around in the streets and parks when I was younger (not just in my baby boomer childhood but in my 20s and 30s) and now instead the typical passer by is my age or older. We are no longer working but we are not expecting to drop dead any time soon, thank you very much. And our pensions are sacrosanct. But those pensions are only there because of younger people coming into the workforce. The retired population is approximately a third of the working population, and is rising. Pragmatically, this is a hugely important reason not to oppose immigration, though as Morland points out, the problem of large numbers of old age dependents is almost universal throughout the world - other countries need their young workers too. Really high birth rates are confined to a shrinking number of central African states. China's population has shrunk below that of India. Japan and South Korea are heading for disaster. A well argued, calm and ultimately positive book, I found it convincing in its own terms, very readable and to use an overused phrase, 'an eye opener'. You may not agree with all of Morland's assessment, but I urge you to read his book.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started reading about demographics and the decline of human population after seeing a video on YouTube about China's demographics.

I kind of fell down the rabbit hole and found many articles and other videos on the subject.

Then I started reading books on it. This is the second book I have read on the subject.

The first one was Empty Planet https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... in which the writer made a strong argument for immigration and the last chapter felt like a strongly worded lecture to tell people that we must embrace immigration as it could be the only thing that would stop the numbers from falling.

I think this has now been proven to be incorrect. Germany has had a very strong immigration program and it has done nothing for their demographics. I think there are other countries that show similar stories.

And now this book No One Left. The writer seems to be far more knowledgeable about demographics and what is causing the decline. But doesn't really seem to offer any kind of suggestions how to fix it.

Yes, women need to have more babies. Women are the only people on the planet that are capable of doing this. Except for one tiny problem.

They don't want to.

And this is not just happening in the west where feminism may be more prominent but in countries like Korea, Japan and China too.

Instead of thinking how to have more kids in the world, maybe we should be facing the fact that demographic decline will at some point turn into demographic collapse and we will have to face the consequences of that.

The most major issue being -- an ageing demographic.

Who's going to look after all the old folks?

I think countries like America and the UK will be the only places that will have an increase in population as the governments of these countries will keep relying on immigration to prevent the numbers going down.

Let's see how that works out.

But for other places, say somewhere like South Korea, at some point they may not have enough workers to keep the country operating.

And another thing that could start to happen (I think it's already happening now) is that people will not want to have kids, because of the looming demographic crisis ahead. They will think; Why bring a child into a world like that?

The situation is totally unique and it really is anyone's guess what could happen next. But it's not looking good at all.

We could very well start to see clear visible signs of the effects of this in the next ten or twenty years.

I kind of feel sorry for Generation Alpha and anyone born after that.

Hold on tight, folks.

[Tom Richards · Rating 5 out of 5]

The arguments (for having more children when in many countries fertility has dropped well below the replacement rate) are fairly simple, and Morland makes them well. He also deals effectively with his detractors, who would do well to grapple with the inevitable consequences of low fertility rather than accuse him of base motives.

One example: on current trends (ie fertility rate of 0.75 children per woman), the population of Korea will fall to around 15% of its current level in two generations (2085 if we allow 30y per generation). With this speed of population collapse, it's difficult to see how much survives of what we today know as Korea.

In the UK, where Morland lives, the situation is less extreme, with a fertility rate calculated mathematically as 1.76- but this fertility is calculated as an average for all women from the age of 15-44, and the projected fertility of women born in 2007 is expected to be closer to 1.5 which would represent a near-halving of the population over the same time period (if not accounting for immigration): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c...

These issues arouse strong feelings, and Morland is the messenger who is being unfairly shot. Many issues we face today (high tax, creaking health systems, labour shortages and resistance to immigration) have at their root a low birth rate. It seems reasonable to at least point this out.

[J Merridew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book right after finishing “The Human Tide”. In this book he is outright pro-natalist whereas in The Human Tide he seemed to say that not only is low fertility an inevitability for every modernizing human population, but that it is desirable. In No One Left, we also get more up to date information ( for example acknowledging India’s population surpassing China’s, instead of projecting a future date for it).

Overall, decent demographic info and summary of various points of view on declining fertility and shrinking populations in our current world (read in May of 2025).

[Simon Hepple · Rating 4 out of 5]

neat book that makes the case for populations declining after getting to a certain peak. It highlights the issues that a falling population can be terrible for human progress with far too few workers working while the population declines.

I liked to hear the comparisons from the various countries, the Korean experience was particularly startling.

[Dean HOCK1NG · Rating 3 out of 5]

The topic wasn’t new to me so I probably didn’t appreciate it as much as I should’ve, but I think the research and depth of study that the author has put into this book is really in depth and interesting. I would recommend it but I didn’t find it as gripping as I’d expected

[Sophie Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely insightful and well-researched book that has made me notice, think about and debate with my husband many things within our current society and fertility rates.

[Garreth Byrne · Rating 3 out of 5]

one of the most important topics of our time but missing a chapter on the true consequences of the fall of the East and West vs the rise of Africa.

[Dorota · Rating 3 out of 5]

An informative and well researched book but could have been a longer article.