Assignment #3 - Birth Rate and Ideology - Andrew Yeh

Objective: Does a high percentage of Catholicism actually have a correlation with a high birth rate or are there other variables (such as infant mortality, poverty levels) that appear to correlate more closely with birth rates than religious belief?

6 Nations with Catholic Percentages Higher than 65%

Argentina
% of Catholics- 92%
Birth Rate- 17.12 births/1,000 population
Death Rate- 7.35 deaths/1,000 population
Infant Mortality Rate- 10.24 deaths/1,000 live births
Average Lifespan- 77.32 years
Average Income- $18,400
Average Educational Level- 16 years
Unemployment- 7.2%

Ecuador
% of Catholics- 95%
Birth Rate- 19.23 births/1,000 population
Death Rate- 5.03 deaths/1,000 population
Infant Mortality Rate- 18.48 deaths/1,000 live births
Average Lifespan- 76.15 years
Average Income- $10,200
Average Educational Level- 14 years
Unemployment- 4.9%

Italy
% of Catholics- 80%
Birth Rate- 8.94 births/1,000 population
Death Rate- 10.01 deaths.1,000 population
Infant Mortality Rate- 3.33 deaths/1,000 population
Average Lifespan- 81.95 years
Average Income- $24,216
Average Educational Level- 16 years
Unemployment- 10.6%

Mexico
% of Catholics- 82.7%
Birth Rate- 18.61 births/1,000 population
Death Rate- 4.94 deaths/1,000 population
Infant Mortality Rate- 16.26 deaths/1,000 live births
Average Lifespan- 76.96 years
Average Income- $12,732
Average Educational Level- 14 years
Unemployment- 9.8%

Poland
% of Catholics- 89.8%
Birth Rate- 9.88 births/1,000 population
Death Rate- 10.31 deaths/1,000 population
Infant Mortality Rate- 6.3 deaths/1,000 live births
Average Lifespan- 76.45 years
Average Income- $20,900
Average Educational Level- 15 years
Unemployment- 12.8%

Spain
% of Catholics- 94%
Birth Rate- 10.14 births/1,000 population
Death Rate- 8.94 deaths/1,000 population
Infant Mortality Rate- 3.35 deaths/1,000 live births
Average Lifespan- 81.37 years
Average Income- $22,847
Average Educational Level- 17 years
Unemployment- 25.1%

3 Nations with Catholic Percentages Lower than 5%

Afghanistan

% of Catholics- <1%
Birth Rate- 39.05 births/1,000 population
Death Rate- 14.35 deaths/1,000 population
Infant Mortality Rate- 119.41 deaths/1,000 live births
Average Lifespan- 50.11 years
Average Income- $1,100
Average Educational Level- 8 years
Unemployment- 35%

North Korea
% of Catholics- <1%
Birth Rate- 14.49 births/1,000 population
Death Rate- 9.15 deaths/1,000 population
Infant Mortality Rate- 25.34 deaths/1,000 live births
Average Lifespan- 69.51 years
Average Income- $1,800
Average Educational Level- N/A
Unemployment- N/A

Turkey
% of Catholics- <1%
Birth Rate- 17.22 births/1,000 population
Death Rate- 6.11 deaths/1,000 population
Infant Mortality Rate- 22.23 deaths/1,000 live births
Average Lifespan- 73.03 years
Average Income- $15,200
Average Educational Level- 14 years
Unemployment- 9.2%

Conclusion

After examining data from these 9 countries, 6 with high Catholic populations and 3 with low Catholic populations, my conclusion is that countries with a high percentage of Catholicism does not correlate with a high birth rate.

My data for extensively Catholic countries included 6 of the top 15 countries with the greatest Catholic population. According to the hypothesis that higher populations of Catholics will lead to higher birth rates, these 6 countries should be above the global average birth rate. However, according to the CIA World Factbook, the average global birthrate in 2012 was 19.15 births/1000 population. Only Ecuador surpassed this number, and only by 0.07 births/1000 population. In fact, in 2012, Italy, Poland, and Spain had some of the lowest birth rates in the world with birth rates under the 20th percentile of all countries. This is already a strong indication that religious belief and birth rates are not correlated.

Looking at the other date, I tried to determine what other factors might attribute more to birth rates than religious belief. With such a small sample, it was difficult to draw concrete solutions. Environmental factors such as cost of living, government, medicine, and infrastructure differ in many of the countries, making average income, education, average lifespan, and unemployment difficult factors to compare with birth rates. However, the factor that seemed to have the highest correlation with birth rate is infant mortality rate, and this correlation seemed to hold for all of the countries I've examined, both in the ingroup and the outgroup. The lowest birth rate out of my 9 countries was Italy at 8.94 births/1000 population, with the lowest infant mortality rate at 3.33 deaths/1000 population. The highest birth rate out of my 9 countries was Afghanistan, at 39.05 births/1000 population, with the highest infant mortality rate at 119.41 deaths/1000 population. The rest of the countries actually do follow a similar pattern and would follow a typical regression line if plotted on a graph, signalling correlation. Intuitively, the reasoning for this is solid. If your children have a higher chance of dying as an infant, you will want to have more births to have a higher chance that several will survive past infancy.

There could be several possible reasons that our initial assumptions were untrue. In regards to the actual prohibition of birth control, belief does not necessarily dictate behavior, and the behavior to use birth control could very well be prominent even in Catholic communities. On the other hand, cultural, societal, or financial pressures could be causing them to rather engage in less sexual activity, which would result in lower birth rates even if birth control was not used. Regardless of the reason, it can be concluded that the prohibition on birth control has not caused a significant change in birth rates in Catholic countries, and that varying birth rates could be attributed to a plethora of other factors, one of which is likely the infant mortality rate.