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Religion may become extinct in nine nations

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#31

Post by barry-cotter »

winestock wrote: post #20
othello wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you make of France, which with Ireland has the highest fertility rate in Europe (2.01 in 2010 [1]), while Catholicism can hardly be described as thriving there: 4.5% of French people go to mass at least once a week [2]. Social policies such as benefits for families with two or more kids and low-cost, widely available day-care centers for children under 3 that allow women to work and have kids sound far more i…

There used to be a saying among French Catholics: "If the traditionalists win, then the liturgical language of France will be Latin. If they lose, it will be Arabic." Muslim immigration into France accounts for the high fertility.

This is horseshit.

he birthrates of Muslim women in Europe have been falling significantly for some time. In the Netherlands, for example, the TFR among Dutch-born women rose between 1990 and 2005 from 1.6 to 1.7. In the same period for Moroccan-born women in Holland it fell from 4.9 to 2.9, and for Turkish-born women in Holland from 3.2 to 1.9. In Austria, the TFR of Muslim women fell from 3.1 to 2.3 from 1981 to 2001. In 1970 Turkish-born women in Germany had on average two children more than German-born women. By 1996 the difference had fallen to one child and has now dropped to 0.5. These sharp falls reflect important cultural shifts, which include the impact of universal female education, rising living standards, the effect of local cultural norms and availability of contraception.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/Walker/2008/04/30/Walke...

http://rfmcdpei.livejournal.com/408410.html http://historyandfutility.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/why-eurab...

Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#32

Post by api »

zeteo wrote: post #26
winestock wrote: post #5

Religion isn't the only thing becoming extinct in those nations. Go to Wikipedia and search for "Demographics of X " where X is a nation from the list given in the above-linked article: Australia, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Switzerland. (Nation/ Total Fertility Rate) (Australia/ 1.97) (Austria/ 1.41) (Canada/ 1.58) (Czech Republic/ 1.49) (Finland/ 1.85) (Irela…

It not religion per se that's becoming extinct in these nations, it's just some form of Christianity (usually, a very moderate and modernizing form). Detailed demographical studies show that fundamentalist religion (e.g. born again evangelicals and devout Muslims) is definitely on the rise, and associated with by far the largest fertility rates.

In addition, I think it's misleading to count "no affiliation" as "no religious beliefs."

What about new-age spirituality, alternative spirituality, etc.? Those typically don't show up in these kinds of studies, but they do qualify as religious beliefs.

Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#33

Post by zeteo »

othello wrote: post #16
winestock wrote: post #5

Religion isn't the only thing becoming extinct in those nations. Go to Wikipedia and search for "Demographics of X " where X is a nation from the list given in the above-linked article: Australia, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Switzerland. (Nation/ Total Fertility Rate) (Australia/ 1.97) (Austria/ 1.41) (Canada/ 1.58) (Czech Republic/ 1.49) (Finland/ 1.85) (Irela…

What do you make of France, which with Ireland has the highest fertility rate in Europe (2.01 in 2010 [1]), while Catholicism can hardly be described as thriving there: 4.5% of French people go to mass at least once a week [2]. Social policies such as benefits for families with two or more kids and low-cost, widely available day-care centers for children under 3 that allow women to work and have kids sound far more i…

The laws of France make it notoriously difficult to gather data on the correlation between religion and fertility, but the best available studies show that in France "[t]he estimated fertility of a woman assisting [religious] offices every week is 24% higher that the expected fertility of a woman who never assist to offices."

http://ideas.repec.org/p/mse/cesdoc/v08089.html

Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#34

Post by barry-cotter »

cpr wrote: post #21
jtheory wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at fertility in France. It's not because people here are highly religious, for sure. Instead, the government simply put lots of programs into place to support family raising -- high-quality free daycare, long school hours (so both parents can get back to work and mothers don't have to sacrifice careers), hefty tax breaks per child, medical care (for birth & pre/post natal, but also pediatric care). And (a bit mo…

The fertility rate in France (as in other parts of Europe) is highly skewed (up) by the immigrant Muslim population.

The birthrates of Muslim women in Europe have been falling significantly for some time. In the Netherlands, for example, the TFR among Dutch-born women rose between 1990 and 2005 from 1.6 to 1.7. In the same period for Moroccan-born women in Holland it fell from 4.9 to 2.9, and for Turkish-born women in Holland from 3.2 to 1.9. In Austria, the TFR of Muslim women fell from 3.1 to 2.3 from 1981 to 2001. In 1970 Turkish-born women in Germany had on average two children more than German-born women. By 1996 the difference had fallen to one child and has now dropped to 0.5. These sharp falls reflect important cultural shifts, which include the impact of universal female education, rising living standards, the effect of local cultural norms and availability of contraception.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/Walker/2008/04/30/Walke...

Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#35

Post by zeteo »

jtheory wrote: post #18
tomjen3 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way to make a table on hn :( But in general better education leads to more wealth, more time spend in schools and those who have college degrees are less likely to be religious and they are less likely to have children (the price of kids is low if they can help out on the farm, very high if you have to raise them in a modern society). I don't know a good solution to this, but I suppose the problem with fi…

Look at fertility in France. It's not because people here are highly religious, for sure. Instead, the government simply put lots of programs into place to support family raising -- high-quality free daycare, long school hours (so both parents can get back to work and mothers don't have to sacrifice careers), hefty tax breaks per child, medical care (for birth & pre/post natal, but also pediatric care). And (a bit mo…

"Look at fertility in France. It's not because people here are highly religious, for sure."

Not exactly true, see my comment above:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2354758

Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#36

Post by drzaiusapelord »

aj700 wrote: post #23

In 200 years they will say: Irrational and women hating creation memes all died in the 21st Century, and the people became truly civilised.

I hope so. I'm seeing strong men and theocracies crumbling the middle east. I'm seeing proud gay men and women demanding basic humans rights in the west. I'm seeing a social acceptance of being non-religious. I'm seeing religious bigots think twice before spewing their hatred in the workplace. I'm seeing young people questioning the faith of their parents. I'm seeing basic science like evolution taught to more and more people everyday. Even while the religious do their best to fight this EVERY STEP OF THE WAY.

The casual hatred that religion breeds is at least being challenged. 1st century cosmologies may never collapse,but they're moving more towards the low-information and undereducated types everyday. I'm not sure what the future holds, but the trend looks good.

Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#37

Post by tokenadult »

zeteo wrote: post #26
winestock wrote: post #5

Religion isn't the only thing becoming extinct in those nations. Go to Wikipedia and search for "Demographics of X " where X is a nation from the list given in the above-linked article: Australia, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Switzerland. (Nation/ Total Fertility Rate) (Australia/ 1.97) (Austria/ 1.41) (Canada/ 1.58) (Czech Republic/ 1.49) (Finland/ 1.85) (Irela…

It not religion per se that's becoming extinct in these nations, it's just some form of Christianity (usually, a very moderate and modernizing form). Detailed demographical studies show that fundamentalist religion (e.g. born again evangelicals and devout Muslims) is definitely on the rise, and associated with by far the largest fertility rates.

Detailed demographical studies show that fundamentalist religion (e.g. born again evangelicals and devout Muslims) is definitely on the rise, and associated with by far the largest fertility rates.

Approximately three minutes after your reply came another reply

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2354753

that cites sources that may allow analysis of what's going on here.

Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#39

Post by tokenadult »

winestock wrote: post #24
Qz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correlation != causation.

"Correlation != causation" is a warning sign not a stop sign. If we find a correlation, then that's a sign that we should look deeper. So far , the evidence says that lack of religion is tightly connected with a drop in fertility. If something other than lack of religion is causing the drop then the best place to look for it is by checking those factors that are most common to the irreligious and least common among t…

"Correlation != causation" is a warning sign not a stop sign.

I might add that for social causation issues like this, longitudinal data (studies of changes over time) are often much more informative than cross-sectional data (comparisons of different subgroups at the same time). You and the original submitter posted longitudinal data, studied by researchers who have a data model that they are further investigating. That's at least worth talking about here.

After edit: as several replies have helpfully noted, one way to test the proposed model is to look at data from other countries, and another way to test it would be to look at data from different (earlier) historical periods in the same or different countries. Much work needs to be done to accept the causal mechanism proposed in the submitted link, but meanwhile we can check the narrower issue of whether participation in organized religion has the same time trend (reduction over time) as fertility rates in various countries of interest.

Re: Religion may become extinct in nine nations

#40

Post by tokenadult »

colanderman wrote: post #6
_delirium wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't normally view religion as a social activity ... Religion doesn't seem to necessitate multiple people in the same way that language does I believe there's some disagreement over whether religion is characterized as primarily a set of beliefs individuals hold, or primarily a sociological phenomenon. Clearly most religions have a mixture of both, so the disagreement is over which is more important or definitiona…

Indeed, I wonder how different the results would have been had they asked, "do you believe in a deity?" or "are you spiritual?"

I can't speak for the other countries, but private polling data in the United States reveals many more people who believe in a deity or who self-describe as "spiritual" than who are affiliated with an organized religious community by regular attendance at group meetings.

http://religions.pewforum.org/affiliations

Christian scholars in the United States have noted that many self-described Christians do not have a set of doctrinal beliefs that accord with historic Christianity.

http://www.barna.org/transformation-articles/252-barna-surve...

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