One of the claims that features in the Legrain piece I mention below is that US-European comparative growth rates give a misleading picture of the relative health of the two economic zones because US population is growing fast (more mouths to feed from that greater output) whereas European population is static. Of course the low population growth in Europe can be looked at the other way: as evidence of Eurosclerosis and the harbinger of a massive pensions-and-health crisis. Now I’ve always been a bit puzzled by the differential demographics. After all, the career pressures are perhaps greater in the US, there’s probably less in the way of subsidized childcare, and access to birth control is similar in both areas. So having children is pretty much elective in both zones and the individual cost-benefit calcultation is probably more favourable to having children in Europe than the US. So I’d predict, if I were just coming at things a priori , a lower birthrate in America than in Europe.
Obviously that’s not what’s happening. So why not? And who is having the kids? After all, the dynamic America/sclerotic Europe claims are usually made by looking at the aggregate statistics. But if middle-class, educated Europeans and middle-class, educated Americans are behaving similarly to one another, but the “excess” children in the US are all being born to impoverished single parents in trailer parks, the aggregate figures may be less favourable to the US. So how do the figures actually break down, by income group, immigrant/non-immigrant, and so on? I’ve no idea what the answer is, and my googling skills haven’t helped here: but maybe someone else does.
I’ve seen it suggested, but have no data, that in the UK it is first generation immigrants and their offspring in turn who have higher birth rates than the rest of the population. The problem with this sort of study is that it very easy for it to be a) misused b)misrepresented and c) misunderstood.
But it still needs doing.
There’s been some suggestions that the cost of housing reduces fertility, through the fact that children continue have to live with their parents for longer, and so don’t want or can’t have children of their own (or perhaps don’t get the opportunity?). The classic example of this is Italian men, where it seems (this would need checking) 50% of men under 30 still live with their parents. Hence, if US housing is cheaper (which I presume it is) then this could be an explanation.
However one could easily argue the oppsite. Certainly in inner London I can think of couples I know who probably are living to together mainly because they couldn’t afford to live on their own, which I suppose could lead to more children…
Most mammals respond to high population densities by reducing their birthrate — an instinctive (evolved) response to prevent the starvation and disease that high densities trigger. The lower European birth rate is probably just a response to the much higher population densities in Europe — Britain, for instance, is 0.5% the size of the US but has 20% of its population, a density 40 times as great.
Please revise “America” or “the US” in this excerpted statement; easy to lose your point here: “So I’d predict, if I were just coming at things a priori , a lower birthrate in America than the US.”
[Thanks, I’ve fixed this - sloppy typing. C]
I’d always heard that it’s immigrants having the kids in the US as well. But it would be good to see a quantitative breakdown. Lower population density and a more religious population could also have an effect, but I’m guessing off the top of my head here.
I don’t think birth control is as available in the US as it is in Europe. For that and other reasons, the US is higher in some of the things that US conservatives most deplore: especially STD, teen births and abortions. I think that the US “just say no” approach to everything means that kids who aren’t completely obedient don’t have any prudent guidelines for their behavior at all. It’s sort of a cliche among sleazy guys that girls from a heavy religious background are among the easiest scores.
Again without data to hand, the birth rate in Italy is one of the lowest in the developed world, which seems to suggest that the religious background doesn’t necessarily work as expected.
Zizka’s post has it spot on I think in relation to teenagers. The UK teenage pregnancy rate is one of the highest in Europe, probably for similar reasons to the US.
I’ve definitely heard and read many times (i.e. such that it seems to be common knowledge, but I don’t have statistics, though I should think a google of something like ‘demographic statistics US’ would get you a wealth of stuff from the US census department) that the birth rate is much higher among immigrants here (in the States).
There was an article about this in the Economist last August — link is http://tinyurl.com/p1hb, but you need a subscription to read it. My recollection is that, as ian says, first-generation immigrants seem to have much larger families than other groups, and that America has many, many more first-generation immigrants, legal or illegal, than Europe does. I think the birth rate among non-recent immigrants is slightly higher in America than in Europe, too, but it’s hard to know how much this is because we’re seeing second-generation effects.
Luckily I had a UN world population survey handy so here is what is says.
Interestingly the US birth rate was the lowest in its history last year at 13.9 per 1000 people (this includes all people). Yet in Europe, only one country was higher than this, Ireland, at 14.8, then France 12.9, Netherlands 12.5. At the other end Germany 8.8, Greece 9, Italy 9.6 were the lowest. The EU average was 10.6.
The consequence of this was that both the US and the EU had about 4mn births, but obviously given the EU’s population is much larger than the US’s (379 to about 289) the average is lower.
This is magnified because the same is not true of deaths — indeed Europe’s aging population meants it has proportionately more detahs (1% to 0.9%) Thus in 2002 there were 3.7m deaths in the EU comapared with 2.4m in the US.
Add in more immigration in the US and you get your rapidly rising population.
This does not answer, why? Looking at various immigrant rates they are on the whole higher, but US white fertility rate is higher too so there is probably a bit more too it.
This short paper backs up ‘it’s the housing market’ view.
http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/alesina/columns/ageing_Europe.pdf
US ‘white’ fertility rate? Wozzat? You mean non-immigrant? Or non-immigrant-white? Or what.
Anyway, is that true? I’m not sure, but it’s my impression that that’s not true - that the birth rate in the non-immigrant population is on the low side - comparable to Europe’s.
One factor of course is that a large percentage of our one million a year legal immigration and X more illegal comes from Mexico and points south, and is Catholic. High birth rates are a given.
Gosta Esping-Andersen (a European sociologist) claims, in his book Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies, that the most valuable comparison of fertility rates is between European countries, which have similar levels of economic growth and population density. Among these countries, those that offer state-sponsored child and elderly care (i.e. Netherlands) have higher birth rates than countries sticking with traditional family policies (i.e. Italy). Moreover, countries with state-sponsored caregiving services also have higher employement rates. Esping-Andersen is obviously a supporter of strong welfare regimes and claims that these kinds of policies effectively combat Eurosclerosis, given that both high fertility rates and high employment positively affect economic expansion.
So the U.S. appears to be the exception to the overall pattern. I’m not sure I know exactly why, although I suspect it has less to do with immigrant populations than it does with the amount of wealth concentrated in the U.S. economy. The costs of providing child care are overcome by the relative prosperity of the middle-class in the U.S. compared to the middle-class in other countries. Immigrants arriving to the U.S. are likely given more economic opportunities in the U.S. than elsewhere, which positively affects their birth-rate.
However, it’s also possible that the U.S. is on the negative slope of economic expansion, yet citizens continue to behave as if the economy will expand indefinitely.
But statistically, the middle-class in the US has a low birth rate, and immigrants as a group have a high one. There is some overlap between those two groups, but not a lot. The whole point of our high level of immigration (this is a bit of a dirty secret) is cheap labor, which means that most immigrants are in fact not middle class and most of the middle class is not immigrants.
Probably the difference in immigration: first- and second-generation. But I don’t think it’s something to sneer about (“dirty secret”?). American society’s openness and its ability to assimilate chalk up as big pluses. European society can’t deal with the present number of immigrants - witness all the anti-immigration political parties. It’s either breed or die; and they’re having a hard time breeding.
Also some other commenter in the other thread mentioned the lack of kids in Europe favors the Old Continent in per capita G.D.P. comparisons Very true. You could say that the Europeans have fewer kids because they’re better off; or that they’re better off (now anyway!) because they have fewer kids.
Can anyone document that the US has more immigrants than the EU as a whole? It seems accepted as a basic fact among the comments, but I would like to see the numbers. Not that I don’t belive it, but as a general principle.
Has anyone tried breaking things down in terms of religiosity? I’d expect that the US might have a more religious middle class than the EU, and that religiosity would correlate with family size—but I don’t know any numbers.
Not sure how Arnold is defining “Britain”, but the UK as a whole is more like 2.5% of the US’ land area, with a population density about 8.5 times as high, not 40 times as high. The basic point still holds, but the difference isn’t quite as dramatic …
http://www.int-res.com/articles/esep/2002/article1.pdf
This is a paper [warning PDF format] that gives some explanation on declining birth rates. Of interest, the fact that the the US birth rate is driven up substantially by 1st generation immigrants (10% of population but 18% of births), and that the prime factors in driving down birth rates are economic prosperity and marriage at later age, which override even the strongest pronatal religious influences.
“Can anyone document that the US has more immigrants than the EU as a whole?”
Just a hint: Germany is more immigration friendly than the US in this graph.
Thanks chris, I’ll take a look on those numbers tomorrow, but a quick glance tells me that the difference can’t be that great, though the US probably has more immigrants per capita than the EU as a whole (in total numbers the EU might have more).
One factor favouring fertility is belief in the future. Here in spite of setbacks the US is (and always has been) stronger than Europe, based on confidence in God or enterprise or both.
The bit about dirty secret wasn’t a sneer at immigration per se, it was a sneer at the way people seldom or never put it in those terms, but rather approach it in a roundabout or sometimes euphemistic or other times downright dishonest way. Sorry, but I’m a great believer in bluntness.
Check “Center on budget and policy priorities” and also EITC.
A lot of the data is given in terms of the poverty level. But I remember reading a statistic recently, sorry can’t remember where, about the percentage of children living in households that are eligible for the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit). While the higher end of eligibility is above the poverty level, nevertheless the government feels that that income level is in need of an income supplement if there are children in the household.
I’ve thought about that issue too because it may be “sclerotic” for us in US also, to have to have 2.5 workers to produce the earning power of 1 European if our children can’t afford a decent education to get ahead.
Chris’ original question doesn’t seem to have been answered, though. Who’s having all those extra American kids?
We’re getting a lot of anecdotal “seems to me” discussion, but that’s — sorry — pretty worthless. Also some nice cites, but they don’t seem to be answering the question that was asked. Yeah, first-generation immigrants are having more kids, but they’re a fairly small (~10%) part of the population, and lowering their birthrates to match the national average still leaves the US with a rate well above the European average.
Can’t anyone come up with, say, a birthrate-income curve for the US? Surely there ought to be a way to get the data out of census.gov.
Doug M. — Irish/American, married to a German, father of two
Couple of other points:
— There’s little correlation, either positive or negative, between population density and birthrate.
— The Netherlands have historically had a slightly higher birthrate than the European average.
The Dutch population increased from about 2 million in 1800 to about 16 million today. That’s an eightfold increase; but over the same period, the population of most of the rest of western Europe “only” quadrupled. In 1800 Britain had about six times as many people as the Netherlands (~11 million) while France had about 15 times as many (~30 million). Today both Britain and France have about 60 million people, only about 3.8 times as many as the 16 million Dutch.
Point here being, relatively higher Dutch birthrates are not a new phenomenon. They date back to the 19th century, if not farther, and comfortably predate the origin of the welfare state.
I’m wondering if Esping-Anderson took that into account.
This basically answers those questions
http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p20-543rv.pdf
I didn’t read it all but it seems that Hispanic women have more children, but that isn’t really enough to make the oveall figures that much higher. Income doesn’t seem to play much of a role (but I only skimmed this bit).
A quote i saw from a demographer went like this
, “”The U.S. is the most fertile of developed nations,” he said, just above the replacement rate of 2.0, to replace two parents. He discounts ethnicity as the major cause.
“Even if you tried to match European-Americans with their country of origins, fertility would be higher than in Europe,” he said. “New wealth doesn’t explain it. My pet theory — and you can’t prove this — is that it has to do with greater religiosity than in Europe or Japan.”
The Economist article about this is available online
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1291056
Matthew, I don’t see how the “greater religiosity” hypothesis is consistent with what is said in the Economist article. The Economist says:
Between 1960 and 1985, the American fertility rate had fallen faster than Europe’s, to 1.8, slightly below European levels and far below the “replacement level” of 2.1
Did the US become less religious than Europe during those years only to bounce back after 1980?
” the “excess” children in the US are all being born to impoverished single parents in trailer park”
I bet they grow up to become gun-loving republicans. What a disaster. No sterotyping here.
Here is the real story. the EU and the US flipped a coin to see who would get the arabs and the mexicans. The US won and chose the mexicans. We win.
Oh sorry I don’t know if you saw that was a quote from a demographer, not me. And one I didn’t actually mean to include after the ‘he said’. I don’t buy the religous argument myself.
Perhaps it’s to do with pensions. Germany has a generous state pension scheme so people don’t feel they need children to look after them….
Hello, all. I’m a demographer. Don’t know that it’ll help all that much with this discussion, since we (demographers) don’t really have an adequate explanation for differences in fertility rates between the U.S. and Europe, either…
But at least I can fill in some numbers for the discussion. Data from 2001 (from the National Vital Statistics Reports) show the following Total Fertility Rates (# of kids a woman would be expected to have in her lifetime if current rates prevailed throughout her childbearing years—this is a better measure for these comparisons than the crude birth rates some of you were using earlier, because it is not affected by differing age distributions of the populations you’re comparing)…
TFR for all in U.S.: 2.034
for non-Hispanic whites: 1.843
for non-Hispanic blacks: 2.104
for all Hispanics: 2.748
(broken down, Mexican origin: 2.928, Puerto Rican origin: 2.165)
The basic point is that even among non-Hispanic whites in the United States, TFR is a bit higher than in Europe (for the most part).
Some European TFRs from 2003 World Pop. Data Sheet:
Italy 1.2
Ireland 2.0 (higher!)
U.K. 1.6
Denmark 1.7
Sweden 1.6
The argument that it has something to do with religiosity among Americans is not totally off the wall, and neither are the arguments about population density. A lot of the evidence for the historical declines in fertility that brought us from high/”natural” fertility to these below-replacement levels suggests that it had at least as much, if not more, to do with culture and ideas and social networks as it did to do with economics.
Chris K - does the Germany migration figure include gastarbeiter (guest workers)? It might account for the higher migration figure if it does.
One other quick point—on the issue of access to birth control. We (in the US) have higher teen births than they do in Europe, even though, for the most part, teens start having sex at about the same age both places. Access to contraception is an issue for teens here.
“Did the US become less religious than Europe during those years only to bounce back after 1980?”
The religious revival that started in the 1970s has been quite marked. I live in a country in which 96% of the population says it believes in God, which, I’ve read, is about the highest percent in the world. One historian argues that America is now undergoing its fourth Great Awakening. It’s worth noting that the best selling fiction in America during the 1990s were the Left Behind books. Are these the kinds of books that would sell in Europe?
As to immigration in Europe and America, I read in the Economist that both “countries” have received about the same absolute number of immigrants during the last 20 years, but that this would represent a greater percent increase for America.
My own feeling is that America has a higher birth-rate than Europe because it is more religous. Eve Tushnet typifies the trend when she says that the whole point of leading a self-conquered life is to make yourself more able to raise more children.
More so, most of my liberal friends are religious. It is not merely the political right that is religous. Most of my liberal college educated friends who hate George Bush are quite religous. It is a universal experience in America to be religous.
religion is definately influential on fertility rates. In the US, white, non-hispanic fertility rates are running about 1.7 - 1.9. Contrast that with the white, non-hispanic fertility rate in the state of Utah - about 2.3. This correlates with the high number of orthodox Mormons in the state. One would expect to find a similar correlation in the “Bible Belt” (southern US). However, white, non-hispanic fertility rates in states such as Alabama (1.9) do not bear this out. Curious.
I’ve seen postings citing the US white fertility rate at 2.1, but this is a little misleading. “White”, as the US Census defines it, includes millions of latino immigrants. When comparing/contrasting the “white population” in Europe and the US, you must keep in mind that the US Census does not consider “hispanic/latino” as a separate race. For Census purposes, “hispanic” refers to the ethnic background of any race (white/black). So, to fairly compare/contrast white populations between Europe and US, one must be specific as to non-hispanic whites.
IMHO, I believe the falling fertility rates among any race in the US or Europe, but especially among white, non-hispanics is a function of secularism, individualism, wealth and accompanying leisure, and a sense of secuity/dependence on the state. Contraceptives/abortion allows people the means to maintain their wealth and leisure time - something (actually, one of the only things) a secular person can look forward to in life. The “god” of Self.
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review