Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

by Jason Hickel

It’s essential that we stabilise the size of the human population. The good news is that this is not a particularly difficult matter: as the economist Kate Raworth put it to me, ‘It’s one growth curve that the world actually knows how to flatten, so it’s not the one that keeps me awake at night.’ What brings a nation’s birth rate down? Investing in child health, so that parents can be confident their children will survive; investing in women’s health and reproductive rights, so that women have greater control over their own bodies and family size; investing in girls’ education to expand their choices and opportunities; and ensuring economic security for all. With these policies in place, population growth falls fast – even within a single generation.24 Gender justice and economic justice must be central to any vision for a more ecological economy.