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An extremely important and informative article - a must-read!!!
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| HardTranceProd |
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20...nA2BHNlYwM3NDI-
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The liberal baby bust
What's the difference between Seattle and Salt Lake City? There are many differences, of course, but here's one you might not know. In Seattle, there are nearly 45% more dogs than children. In Salt Lake City, there are nearly 19% more kids than dogs.
This curious fact might at first seem trivial, but it reflects a much broader and little-noticed demographic trend that has deep implications for the future of global culture and politics. It's not that people in a progressive city such as Seattle are so much fonder of dogs than are people in a conservative city such as Salt Lake City. It's that progressives are so much less likely to have children.
It's a pattern found throughout the world, and it augers a far more conservative future - one in which patriarchy and other traditional values make a comeback, if only by default. Childlessness and small families are increasingly the norm today among progressive secularists. As a consequence, an increasing share of all children born into the world are descended from a share of the population whose conservative values have led them to raise large families.
Today, fertility correlates strongly with a wide range of political, cultural and religious attitudes. In the USA, for example, 47% of people who attend church weekly say their ideal family size is three or more children. By contrast, 27% of those who seldom attend church want that many kids.
In Utah, where more than two-thirds of residents are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 92 children are born each year for every 1,000 women, the highest fertility rate in the nation. By contrast Vermont - the first to embrace gay unions - has the nation's lowest rate, producing 51 children per 1,000 women.
Similarly, in Europe today, the people least likely to have children are those most likely to hold progressive views of the world. For instance, do you distrust the army and other institutions and are you prone to demonstrate against them? Then, according to polling data assembled by demographers Ron Lesthaeghe and Johan Surkyn, you are less likely to be married and have kids or ever to get married and have kids. Do you find soft drugs, homosexuality and euthanasia acceptable? Do you seldom, if ever, attend church? Europeans who answer affirmatively to such questions are far more likely to live alone or be in childless, cohabiting unions than are those who answer negatively.
This correlation between secularism, individualism and low fertility portends a vast change in modern societies. In the USA, for example, nearly 20% of women born in the late 1950s are reaching the end of their reproductive lives without having children. The greatly expanded childless segment of contemporary society, whose members are drawn disproportionately from the feminist and countercultural movements of the 1960s and '70s, will leave no genetic legacy. Nor will their emotional or psychological influence on the next generation compare with that of people who did raise children.
Single-child factor
Meanwhile, single-child families are prone to extinction. A single child replaces one of his or her parents, but not both. Consequently, a segment of society in which single-child families are the norm will decline in population by at least 50% per generation and quite quickly disappear. In the USA, the 17.4% of baby boomer women who had one child account for a mere 9.2% of kids produced by their generation. But among children of the baby boom, nearly a quarter descend from the mere 10% of baby boomer women who had four or more kids.
This dynamic helps explain the gradual drift of American culture toward religious fundamentalism and social conservatism. Among states that voted for President Bush in 2004, the average fertility rate is more than 11% higher than the rate of states for Sen. John Kerry.
It might also help to explain the popular resistance among rank-and-file Europeans to such crown jewels of secular liberalism as the European Union. It turns out that Europeans who are most likely to identify themselves as "world citizens" are also less likely to have children.
Rewriting history?
Why couldn't tomorrow's Americans and Europeans, even if they are disproportionately raised in patriarchal, religiously minded households, turn out to be another generation of '68? The key difference is that during the post-World War II era, nearly all segments of society married and had children. Some had more than others, but there was much more conformity in family size between the religious and the secular. Meanwhile, thanks mostly to improvements in social conditions, there is no longer much difference in survival rates for children born into large families and those who have few if any siblings.
Tomorrow's children, therefore, unlike members of the postwar baby boom generation, will be for the most part descendants of a comparatively narrow and culturally conservative segment of society. To be sure, some members of the rising generation may reject their parents' values, as often happens. But when they look for fellow secularists with whom to make common cause, they will find that most of their would-be fellow travelers were quite literally never born.
Many will celebrate these developments. Others will view them as the death of the Enlightenment. Either way, they will find themselves living through another great cycle of history.
Phillip Longman is a fellow at the New America Foundation and the author of The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What to Do About It. This essay is adapted from his cover story in the current issue of Foreign Policy magazine. |
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| sponger |
this article just proves why the liberal philosophy and way of life is dangerous to western civilization. Funny how liberals mock church going conservatives for their beliefs, especially in europe where less and less people attend church, but these liberals will not even survive very long.
liberals support gay unions, and the result is a state like Vermont with the lowest fertility rate. That along with abortions is not going to ensure the survival of western society.
The reason why this is not just a democrat or republican issue and why its a danger to western civilization is because the west will be overcome by muslims. just look at the recent statements from the radical imam in Norway.
article
| quote: | We're the ones who will change you," Krekar told Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet in his first interview since an uproar broke out over cartoons deemed offensive to Muslims. "Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes," Krekar said. "Every western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries are producing 3.5 children.
"By 2050, 30 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim."
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at that rate the west can't survive, thanks to liberals and their gay unions and abortions and no family values |
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| shaolin_Z |
| quote: | | Originally posted by HardTranceProd |
What's so surprising about this? I thought you would be fairly familiar with info of this nature. So, umm, since you posted the article, what are your thoughts? |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by sponger
at that rate the west can't survive, thanks to liberals and their gay unions and abortions and no family values |
well, to be honest if \"the west\" is going to be made up of people sharing such ridiculously stupid views like you are espousing, then im glad its doomed.
it never ceases to amaze me just how myopic & narrow-minded members on this forum can be. its ridiculous :( |
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| shaolin_Z |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
\"the west\" |
pkc, I never understood why you why your quotes are always followed by a back-slash :conf: |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
pkc, I never understood why you why your quotes are always followed by a back-slash :conf: |
90% of my TA posting occurs at work. and for whatever reason i need to use an online proxy server (in my case, www.unipeak.com) to bypass our settings so that my posts will work. otherwise i get a continual login screen. something to do with unipeak's settings mean most (tho not all for some reason) \" & ' get a backslash added to them. is why i dont always punctuate ;) |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| Yeah, I must say that I've noticed the trend too and that the author pinpointed my exact fears. Overall I have a feeling that this does not look like it might end up as a good thing. Secular and liberal people often fail to realize that it's not just their social influence that matters, it's often their families that do more to carry on their legacy. The thing is that with the rise of feminism and anarchism in the 60's the traditional family values have been relativized in the minds of the average liberal person, and that led to a decreased number of their children. All that can be done to prevent that sequence of events is either embracing the chinese 1 or 2 child policy (which would probably be a demographic disaster), or to reinstate the family first mindset into secular and liberal people in order for them to have more kids (which I really have no idea how to achieve). |
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| Psy-T |
| anyone care to do the statistics research and math to figure out how long before we are left with around 10% forward-thinkers or less? |
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| ali92 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Psy-T
anyone care to do the statistics research and math to figure out how long before we are left with around 10% forward-thinkers or less? |
The way it's looking right now, I'd be surprised if we'd be at 10 % any later than 2030 or so. I know I'm personally contributing to the problem, as I don't wanna have kids for decades and, if I had to choose, would rather adopt rather than birth another (too many people suffering right now, let alone birthing another...)...
I'm not in a position to be able to take care of children when I can barely take care of myself right now. If there's a lot of liberals and progressives out there like me, than the world faces some big trouble in the future. |
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| sponger |
| "forward-thinkers" :stongue: how ironic that "forward-thinkers" can't think ahead far enough to ensure the survival of their thinking. i think by the end of this century we will see europe and their "forward-thinking" completely overrun by middle-eastern/muslim ideology. |
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| Psy-T |
| quote: | Originally posted by sponger
"forward-thinkers" :stongue: how ironic that "forward-thinkers" can't think ahead far enough to ensure the survival of their thinking. i think by the end of this century we will see europe and their "forward-thinking" completely overrun by middle-eastern/muslim ideology. |
if 'we' would breed as much as 'you' do, the world would be in an even bigger mess by now (overpopulation among other things) |
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| tathi |
| genes vs memes is fascinating. it's interesting that more highly educated people are less likely to have as many children as those from uneducated or impoverished backgrounds. Predicting what will become of this sociological trend is impossible; the world may become much more conservative than it already is, or perhaps those children who come from smaller, educated, secular families will be more able to adapt to change in a future that is bound to be very different from our own. Now compare these future adults to those who've grown up in larger more conservative families that rigidly stick to their traditions and values and whom are less ready to embrace change than the liberal minority. Perhaps its this minority who will become the leaders of tomorrow? who knows. |
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