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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29600 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023

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This is why France, Russia, and the US have had relatively higher birth rates than other developed countries--they all still have quite a bit of low cost free space.

Russia and France have the same sub-replacement TFR as the Maldives and Qatar, two countries famous for having no free space at all. Next to the latter two are equally cramped Djibouti and the Seychelles, both with above-average TFR.

It makes sense that Djibouti would have a high fertility.

...what do you mean, specifically?

I just checked, and Djibouti's TFR is 2.522, according to this. This is actually interesting when one compares it to Somalia (note: Djibouti's population is majority Somali and overwhelmingly Muslim) with a TFR of 5.661, ie. over the double the rate in Djibouti. Just the effect of Djibouti's (obviously) greater urbanization?

I was making a childish pun about the pronunciation of the name Djibouti.

Russia and France modernized post WW2. Qatar is currently modernizing and therefore is only just now dropping below replacement. It's where France was in the 50+ years ago in the cycle. Obviously modernization is the main trend here that dominates all other, but Qatar doesn't seem to be an outlier at all. UAE is already sub 1.5. Saudi Arabia seems to be behind on the curve, but its still quickly trending below 2.1. It may be the case that in 20 years Qatar's TFR will still be 1.80, but it doesn't seem that way.

France modernized post WW2.

Wait.... Really? By what measurements? I always imagined they were as modern as the US or England prior to WWII and I'm surprised to hear that they weren't.

Basically all industrialized countries went through the modernization that led to declining birth rates post WW2, but France definitely lagged behind Germany and the UK economically before the 2nd world war.

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