Fertility Rates Vary By Region and SES
The chart above is from the Economist. It illustrates the general rule that wealthier women tend to have lower fertility. It does not display the fertility for the middle 20% of women, which might be of interest when looking for a threshold effect.In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the gap between rich and poor fertility rates were the smallest. This suggests to me that fertility rates for women from that part of the world who move to Europe will be less subject to radical decrease in the new, wealthier environment. In other words, something in the Muslim culture encourages higher fertility--even at higher levels of income.
For immigrants from many parts of the world, fertility rates can fall rapidly after the first generation, toward the fertility rate of the women already in the receiving country. It will be interesting to observe these drops in fertility rates for immigrants originating in various parts of the world. Judging strictly by the graph, one would expect the greatest drop in TFR after immigration in immigrants from East and Central Asia and Eastern Europe. The least drop in TFR would be expected in immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and from MENA.
The South Asia component would quite possibly show differences between Muslim and non-Muslim populations, if broken down into sub-groups.
H/T Fat Knowledge blog
Labels: europe, immigration
posted by al fin at 8:09 am
7 Comments:
"In other words, something in the Muslim culture encourages higher fertility--even at higher levels of income."
That would likely be oppression of women. Wealthier Muslim women are likely to be so due to their husbands/family, not their own efforts, so their opportunity cost to having children is lower, hence they have more.
When collecting welfare is easy for immigrants legal and otherwise and the more dependents, the more money they collect, there is definitely an incentive towards fecundity. For the people that have to bear the cost of raising children themselves, there is an economic disincentive to bearing and raising children.
Dennis, I believe you are correct. Polygamous European Muslim households on welfare can produce a lot of babies in a fairly short time. At very little cost to the parents.
SW, in Europe the "baby hating culture" appears to be growing, partially as a result of what you point out. For Europeans living "la vida dulce" having a baby is considered in bad form.
"In other words, something in the Muslim culture encourages higher fertility--even at higher levels of income."
Perhaps. But then the same has been considered self-evident of Roman Catholics at certain times in the past.
Total fertility measured over 10 years, as The Economist graphic illustrates would camouflage a strong drop in fertility over recent years. And there are lots of other factors that can effect the chart such as the distance between the upper and lower 20% categories and their absolute levels. It is presumable that neither the top 20% nor the bottom 20% have finished their economic advancement nor their fertility decline.
There seem to be a large number of authors claiming that the stats show that Muslim immigrant fertility rates drop to local levels in 2 generations. If this is false there needs to be a strong effort to document the actual statistics.
Also, if there is something that retains high fertility in Muslim populations even as prosperity increases (which would require that falling fertility in the originating nations be explained) it is not a given that this aspect of Muslim culture (or any aspect of Muslim culture) will survive.
Here is an interesting paper which argues that current means of studying fertility rates for immigrants can be misleading. It is claimed that taking cross-sections in time of women who have ended their childbearing years and grouping them into first, second and third generations obscures inter-generational progress of declining fertility rates. The study deals with Hispanic (especially Mexican) immigrants to America but the argument could just as easily apply to the way in which European Muslim fertility rates are measured. The tables referred to are not missing, as I first assumed, but have been detached from the body and appear at the end of the paper.
Thanks for the link, Baron. The paper you link is one among many, with distinctive problems of its own, like all research. It has to viewed with that in mind.
We must not assume that both the upper and lower 20% in these regions will get richer. In fact, both groups may very well get poorer. Within the Muslim world, reactionary violence against the education of women could continue to increase. Misogyny is built into Islam, and the postmodern multicultural west is reluctant to confront it.
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