From mass urbanization to massive refugee flows, high fertility to record low birth rates, global population is changing in unprecedented ways.  “Everybody Counts,” a new podcast series hosted by Rhodes College Professor and Wilson Center Global Fellow Jennifer D. Sciubba, launches a lively and thoughtful conversation about the ways human population shapes our world and how we live today.

In the first episode, Sciubba talks about what happens when women wait to have kids. Are celebrities who give birth for the first time after age 40 outliers, or are regular women really waiting that long to become mothers? She explores the research about super-low fertility and why a woman would choose to postpone childbearing. Sciubba is joined by author ElizabethKatkin about the relationship between waiting to have kids and infertility.

Future episodes will look at family planning in developing countries, maternal mortality, and demographic security—all themes explored in Sciubba’s forthcoming book, Everybody Counts, which will be released in 2019.

As a political demographer, Sciubba is interested in understanding the impact of societal-level population changes on international and domestic politics, economics, and social relations. She teaches a variety of courses at Rhodes, including Population & National Security and The Politics of Migration. Sciubba served as the Demographics Consultant in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Policy), where she worked on population, environment, and energy issues from 2006-2007. Her book, The Future Faces of War: Population and National Security, was published in 2011.

Today, she shares her research as a Global Fellow with the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Wilson Center and as a contributor to the New Security Beat.