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In 1968, Paul Ehrlich warned in The Population Bomb that a growing global population would lead to mass starvation. Today, some environmentalists echo those concerns, arguing that the energy needs of a growing human population would be unsustainable for the planet. At the same time, many industrialized countries from Europe to Asia and America are facing a very different problem: fertility rates that are so low that their populations are rapidly shrinking. According to projections by the United Nations, even some of the poorest countries in the world will experience a declining population soon. In this course, we will examine the politics of population from both an empirical and a normative perspective. How will the world's population change in the coming century? How can industrialized countries sustain their affluence? Should we be more worried about the specter of overpopulation or the perils of underpopulation? And what are the implications of these findings for topics from migration to climate change to the welfare state?