LOCALISING AND GLOBALISING THE DEPOPULATION DIVIDEND: THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM THREE COUNTRIES IN THREE WORLD REGIONS

Abstract

We bring together evidence from three countries in differing world regions to ask whether or how depopulation is delivering socio-environmental gains – what we call a ‘depopulation dividend’. We first discuss the depopulation problem itself and introduce the idea of a ‘depopulation dividend’, and we present research on national and sub-national depopulation processes in each country, beginning with demographic and environmental change in Japan. Following that we introduce socio-economic outcomes in Spain and New Zealand. Overall, we present a positive perspective on depopulation – an issue that is usually presented in the negative – and we localize and globalize Japan’s, Spain’s, and New Zealand’s experiences therein.