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Table of Contents
About The Book
What if the challenge for humanity’s future is not too many people on a crowded planet, but too few people to sustain the progress that the world needs?
Most people on Earth today live in a country where birth rates already are too low to stabilize the population: fewer than two children for every two adults. In After the Spike, economists Dean Spears and Michael Geruso sound a wakeup call, explaining why global depopulation is coming, why it matters, and what to do now.
It would be easy to think that fewer people would be better—better for the planet, better for the people who remain. This book invites us all to think again. Despite what we may have been told, depopulation is not the solution we urgently need for environmental challenges like climate change. Nor will it raise living standards by dividing what the world can offer across fewer of us. Spears and Geruso investigate what depopulation would mean for the climate, for living standards, for equity, for progress, for freedom, for humanity’s general welfare. And what it would mean if, instead, people came together to share the work of caregiving and of building societies where parenting fits better with everything else that people aspire to.
With new evidence and sharp insights, Spears and Geruso make a lively and compelling case for stabilizing the population—without sacrificing our dreams of a greener future or reverting to past gender inequities. They challenge us to see how depopulation threatens social equity and material progress, and how welcoming it denies the inherent value of every human life. More than an assembly of the most important facts, After the Spike asks what future we should want for our planet, for our children, and for one another.
Most people on Earth today live in a country where birth rates already are too low to stabilize the population: fewer than two children for every two adults. In After the Spike, economists Dean Spears and Michael Geruso sound a wakeup call, explaining why global depopulation is coming, why it matters, and what to do now.
It would be easy to think that fewer people would be better—better for the planet, better for the people who remain. This book invites us all to think again. Despite what we may have been told, depopulation is not the solution we urgently need for environmental challenges like climate change. Nor will it raise living standards by dividing what the world can offer across fewer of us. Spears and Geruso investigate what depopulation would mean for the climate, for living standards, for equity, for progress, for freedom, for humanity’s general welfare. And what it would mean if, instead, people came together to share the work of caregiving and of building societies where parenting fits better with everything else that people aspire to.
With new evidence and sharp insights, Spears and Geruso make a lively and compelling case for stabilizing the population—without sacrificing our dreams of a greener future or reverting to past gender inequities. They challenge us to see how depopulation threatens social equity and material progress, and how welcoming it denies the inherent value of every human life. More than an assembly of the most important facts, After the Spike asks what future we should want for our planet, for our children, and for one another.
About The Authors
Photograph by Sasha Haagensen
Dr. Dean Spears is an economic demographer, development economist, and associate professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also the founding executive director of the Research Institute of Compassionate Economics (r.i.c.e.) and the director of the Population Wellbeing Initiative at UT-Austin. With Dr. Diane Coffey, he is the author of the award-winning book Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development, and the Costs of Caste. He holds a master’s in public affairs and a PhD in economics, both from Princeton. He is an affiliate of the Institute for Labor Economics (IZA) and of the Population Research Center at UT-Austin. His work has been published in top peer-reviewed outlets including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Climate Change, and Demography, and has been featured in The New York Times, National Geographic, Time, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Vox, The Atlantic, and The Economist.
Photograph by Sasha Haagensen
Dr. Michael Geruso is an economic demographer, public economist, and associate professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin. From 2023 to 2024, he served as a senior economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, where he advised on issues of health and demography. He holds bachelor’s degrees in engineering, political science, and philosophy. He earned his PhD in economics from Princeton and completed postdoctoral work at Harvard prior to joining the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. Since 2014, he has served on the board of the Research Institute of Compassionate Economics (r.i.c.e.). He is an affiliate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and of the Population Research Center at UT-Austin. His work has been published in top peer-reviewed outlets including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, and Demography, and has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Vox, The Atlantic, and The Economist.
Product Details
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster (July 8, 2025)
- Length: 320 pages
- ISBN13: 9781668057339
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Raves and Reviews
"Counterintuitive. . . . Spears and Geruso have started an essential conversation on how humans might realistically address the vexing challenges of population change."
– Booklist (starred review)
“After the Spike is an important book. Demography is destiny; Spears and Geruso tell a surprising story and show us how to shape that destiny for a sustainable, flourishing world.”
– Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America and author of “Why Women Still Can't Have It All”
“With stunning clarity, Spears and Geruso show why our assumptions about population, progress, and prosperity are leading us astray. If you want to understand where humanity is going, and why that matters, this book is essential reading.”
– Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Regret, When, and Drive
“Fascinating, thoughtful, and timely. Spears and Geruso are ahead of the global conversation. In ten years, everyone will be talking about global demographic decline and what to do about it. Read this book before your friends and rivals figure out the importance of this topic.”
– Simon Johnson, 2024 Nobel Laureate in Economics
“Spears and Geruso take us by the hand to understand the most dramatic period of human history—how a global population of millions became billions—but, importantly, what happens next. The insights and rigor—which come thick and fast—are matched by human and empathetic narrative.”
– Hannah Ritchie, lead researcher at Our World in Data and author of Not the End of the World
“I don't agree with every suggestion in this book of course, but I think it offers up some interesting and important conversations that we’d do well to take seriously. And a world in which parenting is easier would be a huge improvement!”
– Bill McKibben, author of Here Comes the Sun and The End of Nature, founder of Third Act and 350.org
“Spears and Geruso present a clear-eyed and compassionate argument about what we have to lose – not just from the worldwide drop in births already underway, but also from harmful and counterproductive attempts to boost births by coercing women’s and couple’s childbearing decisions.”
– Diana Greene Foster, author of The Turnaway Study, MacArthur Fellow, professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco
“After the Spike is a remarkable blend of empirical research and philosophical argument that has challenged, and changed, my thinking about population. I expect it will do the same for you.”
– —Peter Singer, author of The Life You Can Save and Animal Liberation
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- Book Cover Image (jpg): After the Spike Hardcover 9781668057339
- Author Photo (jpg): Dean Spears Photograph by Sasha Haagensen(0.1 MB)
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- Author Photo (jpg): Michael Geruso Photograph by Sasha Haagensen(0.1 MB)
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