Assignment 3 – Birthrate and ideology
Cathrine Rieber
In order to
answer the assignment, I have collected data from the World Factbook.
|
|
Italy
|
Spain
|
Mexico
|
Brazil
|
Philippines
|
France
|
|
Roman
Catholic (%)
|
80.0 %
|
94.0 %
|
82.7 %
|
73.6%
|
80.9%
|
85.5%
|
|
Birthrate (%)
|
0.89 %
|
1.01 %
|
1.86 %
|
1.49%
|
2.46 %
|
1.26 %
|
|
Death
rate (%)
|
0.10 %
|
0.89 %
|
0.49 %
|
0.65%
|
0.49 %
|
0.89 %
|
|
Infant
Mortality Rate (%)
|
0.33 %
|
0.35 %
|
1.62 %
|
1.98%
|
1.89 %
|
0.33 %
|
|
Life
expectancy rate
|
81.95
|
81.37
|
76.86
|
73.02
|
72.21
|
81.56
|
|
Avrg.
yearly income ($)
|
29.812
|
30.058
|
15.363
|
11.747
|
4.380
|
35.295
|
|
Avrg.
Educ. level (yr.)
|
16 yrs
|
17 yrs
|
14 yrs
|
14 yrs
|
11 yrs
|
16 yrs
|
|
Education
in % of GDP
|
4.7 %
|
5.0 %
|
5.3 %
|
5.6 %
|
2.7 %
|
5.9 %
|
|
|
India
|
Algeria
|
Iceland
|
|
Roman
Catholic (%)
|
0.0 %
|
>1.0 %
|
2.5 %
|
|
Birthrate (%)
|
2.0 %
|
2.42 %
|
1.31 %
|
|
Death
rate (%)
|
0.74 %
|
0.43 %
|
0.70 %
|
|
Infant
Mortality Rate (%)
|
4.5 %
|
2.26 %
|
0.31 %
|
|
Life
expectancy rate
|
67.48
|
76.18
|
81.11
|
|
Avrg.
yearly income ($)
|
3.843
|
7.268
|
39.718
|
|
Avrg.
Educ. level (yr.)
|
11 yrs
|
14 yrs
|
18 yrs
|
|
Education
in % of GDP
|
3.3 %
|
3.6 %
|
7.8 %
|
If we look
at the relationship between the percentage of Roman Catholic citizens and the
corresponding birth rates in each country, we see that the birth rates vary a
lot regardless of the religion in the countries. The Catholic countries even tend
to have lower birth rates than the nations with a low percentage of Catholics,
which interferes with the reasonable assumption that nations with large
Catholic populations would have high birth rates due to the absence of birth control
measures.
Let me
emphasize this with an example: In Mexico, 82.7% of the population is Roman
Catholic whilst India’s population has no percentage of Roman Catholics. Even
so, the birthrates in the two nations are almost equal: Mexico has a birthrate
of 18.61 births per 1000 population and India 20.24 births per 1000 population.
This indicates that there is not a strong
relation between these two variables and that there are other contributing
factors that affect the birthrates than the absence of artificial birth control
measures.
If we look
at the average income in the different nations, there tends to be a pattern in
the relation between birthrates and average income. The countries that have a
lower average income tend to have a higher birthrate than the countries with a
high income, and vice versa. Algeria for example, which has an average yearly
income of $ 7.268, has a birthrate of 24.2 births per 1000 population, whilst
Italy who has an average income of $ 29.812 has a birthrate of 8.9 births per
1000 population. As we see, there is a stronger correlation between birthrates
and average income than with religion. Reasons for this might be the
differences in cultures – in some countries it is looked upon as a privilege to
have many children, whilst in other countries there is more focus on career
etc.
Looking at
the infant mortality rates compared to birthrates, I found that there is quite
a strong correlation. Italy for instance, has a fairly low infant mortality
rate (0.33%) and a birth rate of 8.9 births per 1000 population. India on the
other hand, has a much higher infant mortality rate at 4.5% and also a higher
birthrate at 20 births per 1000 population. This indicates that a higher infant
mortality rate leads to a higher birth rate. The reason for this might be that
the possibility of loosing a child results in more births in order to be secure
that you will have some children that grow up.
To
summarize, the amount of Roman Catholic in a country seems to have a weak
correlation with the birth rates within a country. Even though there is a
technologically conservative prohibition against artificial birth control among
practitioners of Catholicism, this prohibition does not really seem to exist in
behavior. Other factors such as average yearly income, infant mortality, average
education level and life expectancy rate seems to have a stronger relation and
effect on birthrates.
