In Australia, debate about population runs in well-worn grooves. The focus is on size – ‘big Australia’ versus ‘not-so-big Australia’ – and the tool used to regulate numbers is immigration. When politicians link population growth to excessive house prices, traffic congestion, unemployment, or crime, they call for immigration cuts, not for birth control.

Liz Allen wants us to think about population more broadly by introducing readers to the wonders of demography, which she calls a ‘superpower’. Its transformative possibilities operate at two levels in this book.