What drives fertility? What drives mortality? What drives migration? These are some of the questions that drive the field of demography.

Paul Morland is the author of three books: 'Demographic Engineering: Population Strategies and Ethnic Conflict' which looks at the links between demography and conflict, 'The Human Tide: How Population Shaped the Modern World' which charts the last two hundred years from a demographic perspective, and his most recent, 'Tomorrow's People' which examines current and future population trends.

Greg and Paul analyze how economics and cultural values affect fertility in a society, population size & productivity, the political attitudes to demography, the relationship between demography and power, and what sort of future current trends may bring.

Episode Quotes:

Demography has a unique insight to history

02:05: Demography has indeed a unique insight into history. It's a field of its own. So, apart from history, people are studying: What drives fertility? What drives mortality? What drives migration? It can be a very contemporary study. It can be a highly mathematical, highly statistical study, but thinking of it historically, it is a window on history, and there are many windows on history, and to see history properly, we need to look through all those windows.

Defining postmodernity

08:34: Your fertility rate is going to be driven hugely not by how much you earn or even the level of education you have, but by your beliefs.

Who controls fertility

12:15: Control of fertility tends to start at the top and work its way down. So access to contraception, it was often quite expensive or you needed to know about it, you needed education. So very often in societies it's the wealthier that start using contraception and it filters down.

Show Links:

Guest Profile:

His Work:

229. Demography: A Window Into History feat. Paul Morland

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc