In 2022, demographers demonstrated that parts of the north of Australia are among the most remote and sparsely populated areas in the world. These characteristics are fundamental barriers to economic transformation and growth in the …
In January, China officially acknowledged that its population began to decline last year—roughly nine years earlier than Chinese demographers and the United Nations had projected. The implications of this are hard to overstate. It means …
There’s a constant in Australian defence: not enough people. In peacetime, the defence organisation’s difficulties with recruitment are an ongoing saga, occasionally surfacing in headlines like ‘Sailor shortage strands Australian warship HMAS Perth in dry …
Every society rests on a web of norms, institutions, policies, laws and commitments to those in need of support. In traditional societies, such obligations are borne mostly by families and kin groups. In advanced economies, …
Originally published 3 October 2018. Whether South Africa is teetering or slowly crumbling is moot. But one thing’s clear: the country faces a raft of intersecting crises that it is ill-equipped to solve. And the …