Bookshop Barnie: Why the World Needs More Children by Paul Morland

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2024 on Sunday 20 October at Church House, Westminster.

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION

Paul Morland is an author and broadcaster who writes and speaks about population and the big demographic trends across the world. His latest book, No-One Left: Why the world needs more children, opens with the line: ‘We are seeing the birth pangs of a new epoch, but it’s an epoch without birth pangs.’

Over 250 pages, Moreland argues that there is a demographic calamity awaiting us. He says that unless we radically change our attitudes towards parenthood, have more children and embrace a new progressive pro-natalism, we face disaster. Maybe JD Vance could get off the couch, come along, and get a few tips.

The Financial Times says that it is a ‘a highly readable book’ whereas The Times says that Morland ‘shows an infuriating lack of sensitivity to women’s concerns’. The Daily Telegraph‘s Camilla Tominey called it a ‘brilliant book’, while the Independent said that is was ‘simplistic, misguided, sexist, racist and entirely irrational answer to the wrong question’.

You don’t have to have read the book to join the discussion about whether the world is overcrowded, or whether we need more people on the planet. Is the rise of replacement theory a cause for concern? Are we, as Morland says ‘running out of people’? How might a push for a pro-natalist politics effect women’s freedom? Or is this all a storm in a teacup – as machines fill the productivity gap? 

SPEAKER
Dr Paul Morland
demographer; business consultant; author, No One Left: Why the World Needs More Children

HOST
Austin Williams
director, Future Cities Project; honorary research fellow, XJTLU, Suzhou, China; author, China’s Urban Revolution; series editor, Five Critical Essays.