'How population change will transform our world' with Prof Sarah Harper

Past Event

Date
 27 March 2017, 7:00pm - 8:00pm

Location
 Seminar Room 1, Oxford Martin School
34 Broad Street, (Corner of Catte and Holywell Street), Oxford, OX1 3BD

People World
© Adobe Stock/ denis_pc

This book talk is part of the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival 2017, the Oxford Martin School is the Festival Ideas Partner

Expert in demographics Professor Sarah Harper explains how population change will transform the world and looks at what we can do to meet the challenges that lie ahead.

Harper dispels myths that unstoppable global growth will lead to a population explosion or that climate change will lead to a mass movement of environmental refugees. Instead, she looks at the trends that will affect population growth in regions, including demographic inertia in Europe and the demographic dividend in Asia, high fertility and mortality in Africa, and the youth bulge in the Middle East. Harper says we must prepare for the impact of climate change and urbanisation and for the challenge of feeding 10 billion people.

This is a ticketed event and the tickets are £12.50. For more information and to purchase a ticket please visit this website: www.ticketsource.co.uk/date/325044

About the speaker

Sarah Harper is the Professor of Gerontology at the University of Oxford and Director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, a multi-disciplinary research unit concerned with the implications of population ageing, and director of the Clore Programme on Population-Environment Change.

Her research concerns globalisation and global ageing, and the impact of population change, in particular the implications at the global, societal and individual level of the age-structural shift from predominantly young to predominantly older societies. She has authored, edited and contributed to several books, including Families in Ageing Societies (Editor, OUP, 2004), Ageing Societies: Myths, Challenges, and Opportunities (Hodder Arnold, 2005) and Is the Planet Full? (Contributer, OUP, 2014). She is also the editor of the Journal of Population Ageing (Springer).

About the book

How Population Change Will Transform Our World looks at population trends by region to highlight the key issues facing us in the coming decades, including the demographic inertia in Europe, demographic dividend in Asia, high fertility and mortality in Africa, the youth bulge in the Middle East, and the balancing act of migration in the Americas. Harper concludes with an analysis of global challenges we must plan for such as the impact of climate change and urbanization, and the difficulty of feeding 10 billion people, and considers ways in which we can prepare for, and mitigate against, these challenges.