The New New Zealand: Facing demographic disruption

by Paul Spoonley

In this timely book, New Zealand's best-known commentator on population trends, Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley, shows how, as New Zealand moves into the 2020s, the demographic dividends of the last 70 years are turning into deficits. Our population patterns have been disrupted. More boomers, fewer children, an ever bigger Auckland and declining regions are the new normal. We will need new economic models, new ways of living. Spoonley ‘It is not a crisis (even if at times it feels like it), but rather something that needs to be understood and responded to. But I fear that policy-makers and politicians are not up to the challenge. That would be a crisis.'

Genres: Nonfiction

349 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 13, 2020

Reviews

[Tessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a bit disappointed by this. It was extremely dry; I did enjoy some of the anecdotes and charts, but overall, this took an extremely interesting topic, and somehow made it boring..

[To Summarise · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read my full summary and review of this book on my website.

The New New Zealand tackles an interesting, important and neglected topic. I feel like I now have a better idea of the demographic challenges New Zealand faces in the coming years, but Spoonley is light on policy prescriptions. Overall, his message is that “we need to have informed national discussions about this”, which seems sensible enough and fairly unobjectionable.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t impressed with Spoonley as a writer. He gives us plenty of statistics, without providing appropriate context and suggesting what conclusions we should draw from them. For example, he writes:

“In 1990, there were 24,000 over the age of 65 in paid work in New Zealand. In 2014, it was 127,000 – and growing.”

Absolute numbers are not very useful here. How did the numbers of over-65s in paid work compare to the total numbers of over-65s? In other words, how much of the increase is attributed to the general increase in over-65s, and how much of it reflects an increased tendency of over-65s to continue working?

Instead of addressing this, Spoonley then adds:

“Between 1996 and 2016, the number of over-65s in paid work grew by a staggering 488 per cent, compared to a seven per cent rise in the number of 15-24-year-olds in employment.”

Why is he comparing the growth in numbers of over-65s in paid work with the growth in numbers of young people in employment? Again, a more useful comparison would have been to compare it to the growth in number of over-65s in general.

At the same time, Spoonley doesn’t always provide enough statistics, either. A lot of the citations for his statistics are secondary reports, newspaper or magazine articles. He’s therefore relied on other authors to select the “relevant” statistics, rather than going to first-hand sources like StatsNZ himself. This feels, well, lazy. I don’t feel confident Spoonley has checked the statistics himself. In some cases, the figures he cites are out of date, when more recent figures were probably available, and would have been more relevant.

Spoonley admits he’s not a demographer, but rather “a sociologist who dabbles in demography”. That may explain the completely unnecessary “OK Boomer” chapter, which was easily the weakest part of The New New Zealand. It had little to do with demography and much more to do with sociology. In his “Acknowledgements” section, Spoonley thanks his two sons “who continually remind me that baby boomers – like me – have had a lot of support throughout their lives, a level of support that is simply not available to them”. It seems that the chapter was inserted primarily for his sons’ benefit.

The chapter has little relevance to the rest of the book, apart from pointing out that there are intergenerational tensions which may affect the politics around some policies (e.g. superannuation). I mean, sure, but anyone who’s read a newspaper in the last 10 years already knows this – it hardly merited an entire chapter. The “OK Boomer” just detracts from the rest of the book. Here more than anywhere else, Spoonley seemed to rely excessively on secondary news articles and opinion pieces rather than on hard evidence.

Overall, I think I learned something from The New New Zealand. I am a bit dubious about how robust some of Spoonley’s assertions are, but the key takeaways seem plausible and sensible enough. Just ignore that “OK boomer” chapter.

[Jako Abrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was expecting statistics and demographics - an interesting enough book to help me fall asleep at night. Instead it was a lesson in understanding and tolerance through observations. The book is stacked with facts and stats, so it may not tickle everyone's fancy; however, it altered my worldview, so gets 5 stars from me.

[Robbo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book but very dry. Full of facts & figures.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty well written and interesting. The world is changing, including NZ, and we don’t notice it as it happens around us.

[Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting & and thought-provoking read.

[Macy Cheng · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contains an interesting perspective into the field of population studies. I didn't find it provided much insight into what next though.

[Harooon · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a book about the social and economic impact of New Zealand’s aging population. What adjustments will we need to make when there are four retirees for every working adult? Spoonley touches upon every facet of society. The labour force, immigration, productivity, housing, home ownership, politics, wealth inequality, wage growth, and everything else you could possibly imagine.

Because this book is so broad, Spoonley does little more than briefly touch upon each topic. His exposition adds little: yes, if the labour force is smaller, then we will either need to have more babies or attract more immigrants to replace the people that are dying/retiring/emigrating. Isn’t that obvious to anyone who thinks about it?

I picked up this book to learn what the trade-offs of each option will be, and how (if?) political action could ever manifest them. Any such explanation has to be inevitably normative or value-laden, hence possibly wrong. Spoonley’s writing smooths over the spikey-edges too much to offer anything resembling a political formula or social criticism. It poses sterile discussion as sociological analysis, but never states anything that could be possibly wrong, and hence never states anything insightful or useful.

Too much time is wasted in this book mincing words of no consequence. Spoonley insists we call it a “demographic disruption”, not a “demographic crisis” or a “demographic collapse,” because the last two might be too turbulent to allow for rational reflection. I don’t really care for such razor-thin use of language. Any statement in this book is bracketed by every other statement in this book, so it’s simply not necessary to walk on egg-shells around an argument of the author’s own construction and presentation.

I will admit to having a visceral, unfair dislike of (contemporary) sociology. I took one course in university and concluded it to be a waste of time when we were still discussing the definition of sociology two weeks in. Now that I look up the author, I realise he co-wrote the textbook! No wonder The New New Zealand evoked such unpleasant memories of sitting in Maclaurin Theatre.

In an attempt to wrap up this rant-cum-book review, I will now make my concluding remark. While some books make boring topics interesting, and others make interesting topics boring, this one makes a boring topic even more boring.