Angelina Mendez - Birth Rates, Global Comparison

PHILIPPINES

% Catholics: 82.9%

Birth Rate: 25.34/1000

School life expectancy: 12 years

Unemployment: 7.3%

Infant Mortality Rate: 19.34/1000

VENEZUELA

% Catholics: 96%

Birth Rate: 20.1/1000

School life expectancy: 14 years

Unemployment: 8.5%

Infant Mortality Rate: 20.62/1000

MEXICO

% Catholics: 76.5%

Birth Rate: 19.13/1000

School life expectancy: 14 years

Unemployment: 5.4%

Infant Mortality Rate: 17.29/1000

JAMAICA

% Catholics: 2.6%

Majority Religious Affiliation: 62.5% Protestant

Birth Rate: 19.2/1000

School life expectancy: 14 years

Unemployment: 12.4%

Infant Mortality Rate: 14.6/1000

INDONESIA

% Catholics: 3%

Majority Religious Affiliation: 86.1% Muslim

Birth Rate: 18.1/1000

School life expectancy: 13 years

Unemployment: 7.1%

Infant Mortality Rate: 27.95/1000

SPAIN

% Catholics: 96%

Birth Rate: 10.66/1000

School life expectancy: 16 years

Unemployment: 20.1%

Infant Mortality Rate: 3.39/1000

ICELAND

% Catholics: 2.5%

Majority Religious Affiliation: Lutheran Church of Iceland

Birth Rate: 13.29%

School life expectancy: 18 years

Unemployment: 8.1%

Infant Mortality Rate: 3.2/1000

POLAND

% Catholics: 89.8%

Birth Rate: 10.01/1000

School life expectancy: 15 years

Unemployment: 12.1%

Infant Mortality Rate: 6.54/1000

ITALY

% Catholics: 90%

Birth Rate: 9.18/1000

School life expectancy: 16 years

Unemployment: 8.4%

Infant Mortality Rate: 3.38/1000

The results that manifest in these statistics can be seen as characteristic traits of high and low birth rate countries since there is more than a 7 child difference between the 5 highest birth rates and 4 lowest; the large gap places the countries in clearly divided groups. Since Catholicism opposes the use of birth control, populations who prevalently worship the religion are expected to have high birth rates. When analyzing the statistics, it appears that Catholicism doesn’t seem to be an influential factor on a countries’ fertility, since Catholicism is the majority religion in both birth rate groups. Likewise, unemployment does not seem to have an influence on birth rates. My presumption is that people who are unemployed will have fewer kids since they do not have the income to sustain child costs. Unemployment rates around 8% are found in populations that have high and low birth rates. The highest unemployment rate, 20.1% corresponds to the median birth rate of 10.66.

Education seems to have a negative correlation, since the top five birth rates correspond to populations that are expected to stay in school for 13 or 14 years, while populations that have the lowest 4 birth rates are expected to stay in school for 15-18 years. This fits with my hypothesis that people with lower education will have more kids than more education people. Infant mortality rate is the most predictive factor when determining birth rates. Of each population that has high birth rates, they also have very high rates of infant mortality. This supports a fundamental position of demographics that birth rates tend to decrease when babies are more likely to survive. Parents do not feel the need to have more children when they are secure with the first one they reproduce. The fact that there aren’t any consistent relationships proves that birth rates depend on multiple factors. One thing is for certain, at least as evident by the above data, there is no relationship between Catholicism and high birth rates.