Dustin Whitney Demographic Deception: Exposing the Overpopulation Myth and Building a Resilient Future Advantage Books, 2023, 148 p., $29.99.

When I picked up Demographic Deception by Dustin Whitney, I had a sense of unease. The title led me to expect a book in the “popular demography” genre; a genre to which unfortunately few trained demographers contribute and which has frequently been a platform for authors proffering “simple” demographic solutions to global ills, with sometimes far-reaching appeal and dangerous consequences.

However, it would be a mistake to judge this book by its title. Whitney (“a curious businessman with a particular interest in the future”) may be writing from outside of academic demography and in a popular style but his reading of the field is well-referenced and carefully navigated. He explores big demographic issues and their intersections with other global forces in an even-handed, restrained, and thoughtful way. The general argument of the book is that rather than being concerned about population growth (the eponymous “deception” in the title), we should rather focus more on depopulation and aging as we move further into the twenty-first century. The first few chapters consider population growth and its associated panic, then discuss how the population is modeled followed by the story of how the “population bomb” was diffused. Then follows a balanced comparison between the “good and bad news” about population decline and the typical responses which are proposed, namely raising fertility, engaging older persons, and immigration.

Unlike many other protagonists writing in the field, Whitney does not seem to be grounded in any strong political or cultural ideology but rather takes a fairly centrist view. This, in itself, is quite encouraging. The chapter on raising fertility is excellent on the downsides of pronatalism and ultimately lands on a rights-based approach. The approach is epitomized by the quote by Shepherd and Li that “While having a child should be everyone's right, it isn't anyone's responsibility.” The chapter on enabling work in older ages is a wide-ranging consideration of the barriers to work as part of older age and what can be done to remove them such as tackling agism head-on, embracing gerontechnology, adapting work systems, and so on. While many writers with more nationalistic tendencies bristle at the idea of immigration as potentially mitigating some of the effects of population aging, Whitney is more open to maximizing the potential role of immigration in offsetting some of the economic and social challenges of population aging and decline, embracing the idea of a kind of global HR firm which ‘recruits, prepares, places, protects’ migrant workers. I really appreciated the chapter on the role of business, too; this is an often-overlooked aspect in popular discussions of falling birth rates which usually lay all of the blame (and responsibility for change) on either governments or families. Business, Whitney argues, has to get better at accommodating older workers, supporting working parents, making better use of technology, and rejecting corporate short-termism in the face of a longer-term structural, demographic change.

While not as comprehensive as, say, Vegard Skirbekk’s Decline and Prosper! Changing Global Birth Rates and the Advantages of Fewer Children, the book is well-researched and scientifically sound. For example, academic demographers might want to see more than a few pages on different population projections and their underlying methodologies. However, the fact that these divergent futures are presented at all and are being made accessible to a general audience is to be highly commended. As such, what it might lack in comprehensiveness and detail compared to Decline and Prosper! it makes up for in accessibility and also, I think, a sense of urgency. Both the book (and its underlying arguments) could be strengthened by further broadening the evidence base to include concepts such as National Transfer Accounts, prospective aging as well as an exploration of fertility preferences.

What I liked about it most, however, was the constructive, rationally optimistic tone throughout the whole book. In the conclusion, Whitney reflects on the natural tendency to become pessimistic when staring down “big problems”: “That's why so many people look to the future with such a profound sense of gloom…They believe our problems are unsolvable, that all our good days are behind us, that things can only get worse.” Worse still we can panic. And panic, as Whitney cites Wang Feng, “can lead to hasty policy and human tragedy.”

“Adopting this stance,” however, “will not help us avert the problems associated with aging and declining populations.” Indeed, as he continues, “We've solved countless big problems, for the whole of our history…. There's no reason to believe we can't solve—or better yet, avert—problems associated with aging societies and population decline too.” He recognizes, though, that it will be hard—not least in a world of political polarization.

The title does not do the book justice, and some technical issues are, perhaps, oversimplified. However, this is not a text primarily designed for academic demographers. Indeed, that is the very point of the book. Whitney is doing academic demography a favor by distilling and communicating our arguments effectively. Perhaps more of us should step up to do the same.