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  • What to Expect When No One's Expecting

  • America's Coming Demographic Disaster
  • By: Jonathan V. Last
  • Narrated by: Jonathan V. Last
  • Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (5 ratings)
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What to Expect When No One's Expecting

By: Jonathan V. Last
Narrated by: Jonathan V. Last
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Summary

Look around you and think for a minute: Is America too crowded?

For years, we have been warned about the looming danger of overpopulation: people jostling for space on a planet that's busting at the seams and running out of oil and food and land and everything else.

It's all bunk. The population bomb never exploded. Instead, statistics from around the world make clear that since the 1970s, we've been facing exactly the opposite problem: people are having too few babies. Population growth has been slowing for two generations. The world's population will peak, and then begin shrinking, within the next fifty years. In some countries, it's already started. Japan, for instance, will be half its current size by the end of the century. In Italy, there are already more deaths than births every year. China's One-Child Policy has left that country without enough women to marry its men, not enough young people to support the country's elderly, and an impending population contraction that has the ruling class terrified.

And all of this is coming to America, too. In fact, it's already here. Middle-class Americans have their own, informal one-child policy these days. And an alarming number of upscale professionals don't even go that far - they have dogs, not kids. In fact, if it weren't for the wave of immigration we experienced over the last thirty years, the United States would be on the verge of shrinking, too.

What happened? Everything about modern life, from Bugaboo strollers to insane college tuition to government regulations, has pushed Americans in a single direction, making it harder to have children. And making the people who do still want to have children feel like second-class citizens.

What to Expect When No One's Expecting explains why the population implosion happened and how it is remaking culture, the economy, and politics both at home and around the world. Because if America wants to continue to lead the world, we need to have more babies.

©2013 Jonathan V. Last (P)2013 Jonathan V. Last

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Insightful and still very relevant

I regularly listen to JVL on The Bulwark’s range of podcasts and read his daily newsletter ‘The Triad’. However, I only became aware of this book after listening to an interview of JVL by his colleague, Bill Kristol, on Bill’s ‘Conversations’ podcast.
Demography is a topic that doesn’t get the public attention it should, and just how important it is will become clear if you read or listen to this book.
Three things impressed me in particular.
The first is that this book is easy to follow. It is an evidence-driven book, so there is a consistent reference to measures of demographic data throughout the book. But, at no point do you need any level skill in statistics to understand the point being made. JVL even includes an introduction to key measures used in demography early on in the book.
The second point that impressed me was his thoughtful analysis of the public policy efforts that have been made by governments across the globe to reverse their deteriorating birth rates. This was done in an objective rather than ideological or partisan manner.
The final point that impressed me is with regard to the audio version; namely that JVL narrated it himself. It is a pet peeve of mine that many audio books are not read by their authors. In some cases, I’m sure there are legitimate reasons for someone else narrating the book, but in my experience an audiobook is much better when narrated by the author because they can bring their words to life in a way other authors can’t. JVL should be commended for being the narrator of his own book, and I found it so much more engaging to listen to as a result.
I strongly recommend this book to you.

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