Comments on: Religion, making babies and 'peak child': brilliant new Hans Rosling video

By: John McKeown

John McKeown — Mon, 14 Apr 2014 06:48:16 +0000

You are right – Iran made excellent progress in reducing birth rates after 1980, with support from religious leaders. While most countries reduced birth rates in that period, not many as dramatically as Iran. However I’m not referring to national averages – instead look at cases where data is available that subdivides by type of religiosity, in the USA for example “Liberal Protestant” have lower birth rates than “Fundamentalist Protestant”. A similar pattern was found in six northwest European countries, and in Israel the difference between Haredi ultra-Orthodox and other Jews: see book by by Eric Kaufmann (Birkbeck), Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? So to make a sweeping claim that religion doesn’t affect birth rates is wrong.

By: Duncan Green

Duncan Green — Sun, 13 Apr 2014 10:59:47 +0000

So how to explain Iran, which if memory serves, has the lowest fertility rate in the world?

By: John McKeown

John McKeown — Sun, 13 Apr 2014 07:32:09 +0000

On the relation between fertility and religion, Hans Rosling is wrong – there is much evidence of a link between “conservative” religion and higher birth rates. Just look at differences in TFR between religious categories in USA found through GSS (General Social Survey) data, and see writings by Professor Eric Kaufmann. A fault-line cuts across each religion, between “moderate” and “fundamentalist” categories, and the latter have higher birth rates. Hans Rosling should look at the US and European data.
Dr JP McKeown

By: Duncan

Duncan — Sun, 27 May 2012 06:35:48 +0000

Oops, thanks Dag, have corrected the text – bit worrying that you’re the first person to point it out!

By: Dag Ehrenpreis

Dag Ehrenpreis — Sat, 26 May 2012 11:56:06 +0000

No, Hans Rosling did not say what your quote of his conclusion states. Hans certainly is a master presenter and a great salesman of statistical data and how to interpret them, but it’s hard to believe that even he would be able to convince many people that ‘fertility has very little to do with the number of children in the world’.

What he said was, of course, that ‘religion has very little to do with the number of children in the world’!

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 24 May 2012 09:06:04 +0000

No Duncan, don’t be seduced by the flashy graphics!

http://aidthoughts.org/?p=3391

By: Lawrence MacDonald

Lawrence MacDonald — Wed, 23 May 2012 19:39:52 +0000

I’d like to see the same data exercise with Catholic majority countries distinguished from Protestant-majority countries. My guess: while some Catholic majority, like Italy, have sharply reduced fertility despite Church teaching, others, like the Philippines, have been delayed in the demographic transiton by the teachings of the Church. Hans is a master presenter and great demographer but he hasn’t yet persuaded me that religious teachings are irrelevant to fertility.

By: Jo-Anne Witcombe

Jo-Anne Witcombe — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:05:54 +0000

What a brilliant video – so impressed with the explanation of population trends with boxes. Will definitely look at his other TED videos – thanks!

By: Ines

Ines — Wed, 23 May 2012 07:23:26 +0000

Excellent video Duncan! I hope this will be seen by Andrew Mitchell. The focus on family planning of the DFID ‘golden moment’ is both ideological (harking back to pre-Cairo times) rather that based on the kind of evidence the video gives, and dangerous for the possible abuses of women’s (and men’s) reproductive rights and health it can lead to as it happened in the past (remember the Indian ’emergency’ and the Indonesian ‘safaris’?)