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Decline and Prosper!: Changing Global Birth Rates and the Advantages of Fewer Children
Globally, women are having half as many children as they had just fifty years ago. Why have birth rates fallen, and how will low fertility affect our shared future?
In Decline and Prosper!, demographic expert Vegard Skirbekk offers readers an accessible, comprehensive and evidence-based overview of human reproduction. Readers learn about the evolution of childbearing across different populations and how fertility is related to (changes in) our reproductive capacity, contraception, education, religion, partnering, policies, economics, assisted reproduction, and catastrophes. Readers will explore the future of family size and its impact on human welfare, women’s empowerment and the environment. Skirbekk argues that low fertility is on the whole a good thing, while recognizing the challenges of population aging and “coincidental” childlessness. A balanced, integrative examination of one of the most important issues of our time, Decline and Prosper! drives home the fact that we must ultimately adapt to a world with fewer children.
The book will be invaluable to anyone who is interested in the far-reaching effects of global fertility, including researchers and students of demography, social statistics, medical sociologists, family and childhood studies, human geographers, sociology of culture, social and public policy.
In Decline and Prosper!, demographic expert Vegard Skirbekk offers readers an accessible, comprehensive and evidence-based overview of human reproduction. Readers learn about the evolution of childbearing across different populations and how fertility is related to (changes in) our reproductive capacity, contraception, education, religion, partnering, policies, economics, assisted reproduction, and catastrophes. Readers will explore the future of family size and its impact on human welfare, women’s empowerment and the environment. Skirbekk argues that low fertility is on the whole a good thing, while recognizing the challenges of population aging and “coincidental” childlessness. A balanced, integrative examination of one of the most important issues of our time, Decline and Prosper! drives home the fact that we must ultimately adapt to a world with fewer children.
The book will be invaluable to anyone who is interested in the far-reaching effects of global fertility, including researchers and students of demography, social statistics, medical sociologists, family and childhood studies, human geographers, sociology of culture, social and public policy.
434 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 1, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 22, 2023
This book is heavy on statistics and light on opinion.
If you want to read lists of facts about fertility, written from a “data-driven” and “objective” point of view, this book will fit your needs.
However, I was looking for more interpretation of the facts and some sense of narrative. The lack of readability (and ridiculous number of citations — at least 2,000) knocks down the rating for me by a star.
The other star knocked off is for not discussing the “and Prosper!” part of the book title. The author studiously avoids articulating his opinion, and so spends most of the book talking about how fertility changes over time with lists of citations every other sentence. I guess to be expected from an academic author. No future predictions or analysis is made, making the title of the book pretty deceptive.
3 stars for being informative and containing plenty of data. But based on the title, I was expecting an exploration of a future, low-fertility vision that never came. Pretty disappointing as I expected to love this book.
If you want to read lists of facts about fertility, written from a “data-driven” and “objective” point of view, this book will fit your needs.
However, I was looking for more interpretation of the facts and some sense of narrative. The lack of readability (and ridiculous number of citations — at least 2,000) knocks down the rating for me by a star.
The other star knocked off is for not discussing the “and Prosper!” part of the book title. The author studiously avoids articulating his opinion, and so spends most of the book talking about how fertility changes over time with lists of citations every other sentence. I guess to be expected from an academic author. No future predictions or analysis is made, making the title of the book pretty deceptive.
3 stars for being informative and containing plenty of data. But based on the title, I was expecting an exploration of a future, low-fertility vision that never came. Pretty disappointing as I expected to love this book.
July 2, 2024
A book written by a very capable and knowledgeable Author on the matter but still falls a little short. Skirbekk does explain in great (and well referenced) detail how demographic statistics are sourced and their trends as well as their limitations. However, he stays firmly within his area of expertise hence there is very little on discussion on the economic and social impacts and their solutions with his advice simply being that governments need to figure out how to manage low fertility/ageing population societies. Definitely could have benefited from a second author who could explore these more important questions.
Still worth a read if only to get a good grounding in the area and correct popular misconceptions about historical fertility/demography.
Still worth a read if only to get a good grounding in the area and correct popular misconceptions about historical fertility/demography.
July 25, 2024
Packed with information on demography, the demographic transition and contemporary fertility. It is very data and reference driven with many chapters having more than 100 references. Skirbekk stays away from speculation and you often read him say the evidence is unclear and more studies is needed. I do believe many want to have more speculation to spice things up and get things to think about. I like all the data and all the sober discussion of said data. And his style give him more credibility in my eyes.
He has one normative guiding line which is that society should make it as easy as possible for people to have their ideal number of children. Given this he for example suggests women should be informed about how much harder it is to get pregnant after they turn 30 years old.
The author doesn't talk about himself and while he gives a few spread out quotes there isn't any up and close personal accounts of people's lives and experiences beyond the statistics and quantitative studies. Now, I like that and I'm usually annoyed by how much space those accounts take in many popular science books, but as they seem to be in almost all books I guess many readers enjoy it and those readers should probably stay away from this book.
The chapters covers one aspect of demography each and below follows a short description of the chapters/aspects:
How fertility is measured.
How many children people had historically before the demographic transition.
How, why and where (France) the demographic transition started.
Contemporary global fertility.
A chapter on men and women who are involuntary childless.
A chapter on how education (among women) leads to lower fertility.
A chapter on how child-bearing has become more of a planned choice.
The number of children people want to have and how it has changed.
How people are delaying parenthood and how this leads to some never having children.
Finding a partner today.
The economic costs and benefits of having children.
Fertility change in the shadow of a disaster.
How religious or non-religious beliefs impact fertility.
Contemporary fertility in the light of evolution.
Projecting future fertility.
A chapter on the impact of fertility on population growth and population composition.
Fertility policies from the past, current and future policies.
A final short chapter on how low, but not to low, fertility is good for human prosperity.
The title of the book is a bit misleading. It makes it sound he believe a declining population is great or that he has a perfect solution for a declining population which would make us all prosper, but the few sentences he writes on this is very tentative.
For me it is an easy 5 star book and the best book on the subject I've read.
For those who want to hear more of the woes facing us as the global population will start to decline I can recommend the more speculative Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline which I also enjoyed.
He has one normative guiding line which is that society should make it as easy as possible for people to have their ideal number of children. Given this he for example suggests women should be informed about how much harder it is to get pregnant after they turn 30 years old.
The author doesn't talk about himself and while he gives a few spread out quotes there isn't any up and close personal accounts of people's lives and experiences beyond the statistics and quantitative studies. Now, I like that and I'm usually annoyed by how much space those accounts take in many popular science books, but as they seem to be in almost all books I guess many readers enjoy it and those readers should probably stay away from this book.
The chapters covers one aspect of demography each and below follows a short description of the chapters/aspects:
How fertility is measured.
How many children people had historically before the demographic transition.
How, why and where (France) the demographic transition started.
Contemporary global fertility.
A chapter on men and women who are involuntary childless.
A chapter on how education (among women) leads to lower fertility.
A chapter on how child-bearing has become more of a planned choice.
The number of children people want to have and how it has changed.
How people are delaying parenthood and how this leads to some never having children.
Finding a partner today.
The economic costs and benefits of having children.
Fertility change in the shadow of a disaster.
How religious or non-religious beliefs impact fertility.
Contemporary fertility in the light of evolution.
Projecting future fertility.
A chapter on the impact of fertility on population growth and population composition.
Fertility policies from the past, current and future policies.
A final short chapter on how low, but not to low, fertility is good for human prosperity.
The title of the book is a bit misleading. It makes it sound he believe a declining population is great or that he has a perfect solution for a declining population which would make us all prosper, but the few sentences he writes on this is very tentative.
For me it is an easy 5 star book and the best book on the subject I've read.
For those who want to hear more of the woes facing us as the global population will start to decline I can recommend the more speculative Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline which I also enjoyed.
August 16, 2025
Decline and Prosper! isn't a book proclaiming the virtues of a shrinking human population. Instead, 95% of the book explains the great demographic transition we're experiencing: fewer children, more elders.
And it's a solid text for that purpose. Skirbekk walks us through a major forces causing the transition: improved health care, economic growth, changing social mores, and especially the combination of increasing womens' access to education and birth control.
We need this book because too many people are stuck in a 1970s mindset, fearing a massive overpopulation tidal wave, when the opposite is increasingly becoming this century's reality.
Recommended.
And it's a solid text for that purpose. Skirbekk walks us through a major forces causing the transition: improved health care, economic growth, changing social mores, and especially the combination of increasing womens' access to education and birth control.
We need this book because too many people are stuck in a 1970s mindset, fearing a massive overpopulation tidal wave, when the opposite is increasingly becoming this century's reality.
Recommended.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews