Comments on: Boyz II Men and Russia’s Demographic Dive http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/01/31/56505/ A First Things Blog Wed, 22 May 2013 16:45:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Anil Wang http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/01/31/56505/comment-page-1/#comment-88915 Anil Wang Fri, 01 Feb 2013 06:16:21 +0000 http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/?p=56505#comment-88915 I’ll have to agree with Fred.

Extremely poor countries with a strong religious influence generally have several children whereas affluent secular first world countries tend to have slightly more than one child.

Examine the evidence yourself:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html

]]> By: Fred http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/01/31/56505/comment-page-1/#comment-88870 Fred Thu, 31 Jan 2013 22:35:40 +0000 http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/?p=56505#comment-88870 I’m no demographic expert, and I haven’t read any studies or seen any statistics. But didn’t the birth rate in America fall rather precipitously during the boom years of the 1980s to 2000s? The idea that financial instability or deprivation slows birthrates is certainly intuitively plausible, but if I’m right about the demographics above, there is apparently no necessary connection. Or at the very least, the contention that improving economics would improve birthrates is questionable.

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