Demographic and Social Research on the Population and Environment Nexus in Australia: Explaining the Gap

Solving the problem of the adverse impact of human numbers on the natural environment is a collective action problem and, if we are to understand it fully, we need good interdisciplinary research which includes work by demographers and sociologists. A number of factors inhibit this work in Australia: narrow disciplinary training; the scarcity of extrinsic rewards; and, as population growth has come to depend on immigration, the risk of peer disapproval. There is also little encouragement for such research from political leaders or the public. Indeed survey data show that the more Australians worry about the state of the environment the more likely they are to want a higher migrant intake.