Religion and Fertility: Will the Religious Inherit the Earth?
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It's likely been true in the US for decades that the birth rate among religious groups (e.g. Latino people) has been far higher than non-religious groups, but there has still been a stunning decline of religiosity.
There is a great deal of variation between religious groups in terms of their reliability in passing on their views to their children. Some groups have very high retention rates (>80%, even >90%), many others are at the opposite end of that spectrum. Natural selection is at work: those groups who do a good job of passing on their beliefs will grow and prosper, those groups who do a poor job of doing that will dwindle and die. Right now, the religious marketplace is dominated by massive-yet-sclerotic incumbents, whose children are abandoning religion en masse–they may still be huge, but these groups have a very dim future. Meanwhile, there are many smaller groups who have a far brighter future, due to high birth rates and low attrition rates, but they are coming up from such a low base, it is going to take them many decades, even centuries, to overtake the incumbents. But I think it is likely to happen - the next two centuries may end up being far more religious than this one, and the contemporary rise in irreligiosity may well turn out to be "just a phase".
This is wrong because it ignores missionary activity.
If a religion fails to retain its adherents' children, but it recruits adults at a greater rate, it will still grow despite failing to transfer beliefs to offspring.
> Meanwhile, there are many smaller groups who have a far brighter future, due to high birth rates and low attrition rates, but they are coming up from such a low base, it is going to take them many decades, even centuries, to overtake the incumbents.
Which groups, exactly? The fastest-growing major religion appears to be Islam, which is likely a consequence of its presence in many economically depressed countries with high birth rates, low security, and low education.
The problem with conversion, is there is only a limited pool of converts. It is easy for small groups to grow rapidly by conversion, but soon they start to run out of potential targets for recruitment. In the long run, the "breed-your-own" strategy, if it can be sustained, will vastly outperform conversion. One does occasionally observe a new religion take over a society by conversion (much as Christianity did to the Roman Empire, or Islam to 7th century Arabia), but those are rare historical exceptions, which the vast majority of religious groups have no hope of ever achieving.
> Which groups, exactly? The fastest-growing major religion appears to be Islam, which is likely a consequence of its presence in many economically depressed countries with high birth rates, low security, and low education.
The right level of looking at this isn't religions, but rather much lower in the taxonomic hierarchy. Consider Catholics – despite Catholicism's immense size (over 1 billion adherents), Catholics have (on the whole) a rather low and declining birth rate, and do a pretty poor job of retaining their children – in many countries today, the biggest religion is "ex-Catholic". But, on the other hand, if you look at the conservative fringes of Catholicism, you find groups such as Opus Dei and SSPX, both of whom I believe do a far better job at retaining their (often large) broods in the parental faith than mainstream Catholicism does. Similarly, if you look at Judaism, non-Orthodox Judaism has low birth rates and high rates of assimilation and intermarriage, while Modern Orthodoxy does much better in those areas, and Traditional Orthodoxy does very well. I know less about Islam, but I'd be surprised if Salafists and Khomeinists didn't do a better job of retaining their children than more mainstream Muslims do.
I would like to point out the fastest growing religious movement in the world was Pentecostalism. A movement that was limited to a few working class American churches in the early 20th century that has since exploded to 500 million followers across the globe, though this explosion is generally masked since Pentecostals are officially a sect of Protestantism and highly diffuse.
The growth is best scene in Central America where countries that were almost universally Catholic two generations ago can be as much as 40% Protestant, which is almost entirely thanks to conversion to churches of the Pentecostal-Evangelical variety.
In India, Hinduism is declining as a share of the population and Islam is increasing, but there, the Hindu-nationalist Modi regime has been cracking down on non-Hindus and has potentially skewed statistics.
So with those caveats, it seems like India's religiosity hasn't changed much, but (if anything) has declined slightly, and Pakistan is anyone's guess. I can't find any data about it.
I think the article overlooks that the reasons for declining birth rate in different places are different. Among white Americans and Europeans, declining birth rates are due to post-modern views about families, social obligations, and self determination. In Bangladesh (where I’m from) it’s a matter of population control in a densely populated country.
The Islamic mandate to marry and have children is still nearly universal in Bangladesh. Mohammad said: “The best people of my nation (Ummat) are those who get married and have chosen their wives, and the worst people of my nation are those who have kept away from marriage and are passing their lives as bachelors.” Birth rates in Bangladesh didn’t decline because people stopped believing that. My dad worked in family planning in the developed world (I.e. population control) his whole career, including for a planned parenthood affiliate. But he wouldn’t have much common ground with a young American when it comes to the idea that having kids is optional, especially in America, where resources are plentiful.
As countries develop economically (and face demographic inversion) I wouldn’t assume birth rates wouldn’t go back up. The US fertility rate got down to 2 in 1940 (likely due to the economic pressures of the Great Depression) before bouncing back to 3.5 in 1960.
OP here. You're correct, I didn't get into specific reasons for why fertility has declined. This was primarily because it would send the article of on a tangent but also because the final outcome is the same regardless of the reasons behind it. The key point I was trying to highlight was that religious people can be persuaded to drastically reduce their fertility. Within Bangladesh, there was a persistent Islamic resistance to the adoption of birth control, though its adoption eventually won out despite their ultra-conservative religious views. which is what I wanted to stress.
>As countries develop economically (and face demographic inversion) I wouldn’t assume birth rates wouldn’t go back up. The US fertility rate got down to 2 in 1940 (likely due to the economic pressures of the Great Depression) before bouncing back to 3.5 in 1960.
Also a very interesting point you bring up, though the 1950s baby boom was predicated on the end of WWII + post-WWII prosperity. In countries like India and Bangladesh the middle class and aspirants towards upward mobility often face significantly more expenses that a 1950s American did. For example, education is a major financial expense. Private schooling is often viewed as a must by anyone who can afford it, owing to the poor quality of public schooling in these countries. So is private tuition. Unlike 1950s America it is very difficult to achieve middle class status without a university education (and even then it is not a given), these factors serve as strong incentives too reducing the number of children in these countries.
Likewise conservative practices like dowries also may be driving the birth rate down as it is viewed as the responsibility of the parents to raise a substantial enough dowry to ensure their daughter can land a decent husband. Families who cannot achieve this will be viewed as parents who failed their daughters. Unfortunately, neoliberalism has increased not decreased the size and prevalence of dowries.
So for this reason, I do not foresee a South Asian baby boom as it enters middle-income status. Asian nations like South Korea didn't see one for the same reasons.
I disagree the outcome is the same, for the reason suggested by your second point.
> Unlike 1950s America it is very difficult to achieve middle class status without a university education (and even then it is not a given), these factors serve as strong incentives too reducing the number of children in these countries.
European countries have found it difficult to increase their birth rates, despite robust incentives and social services, because in their post-religion society people don’t view child rearing as a moral obligation.
Bangladesh, by contrast, hasn’t experienced the same religious and cultural changes. Thus, the population could respond differently in the event the economic and resource pressures are removed. That’s why the reason for the decline in birth rate matters.
Over the remainder of the century, Bangladesh and India are going to suffer a severe demographic inversion even as it becomes a middle income country. Thats’s a recipe for a reversal in family planning targets, as evidenced by China’s three child policy. Bangladeshis are going to need much less persuasion to have more kids than Germans.
Moreover, there is going to be strong migration out of this part of the world to Europe due to population decline in the former and climate change pressures in the latter. The fertility rate of Muslim immigrants to Europe remains robustly above that of native Europeans. Indeed, several projections show the world becoming more religious over the next century: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/04/is...
But are they the same Indians and Bangladeshis? Instead of just looking at fertility rates at a national level – do Hindutvists and Islamists have as small families as their more politically moderate compatriots?
Right now fertility rates in India most closely map to development of the region and social class, not political beliefs.
Yet some people remain religious – or sometimes even become religious – despite having been extensively "exposed to secular explanations for things". How do you explain that?
For people remaining or becoming religious: there are obvious benefits to being part of a community (assuming that the community isn't harmfully dysfunctional in any apparent way, from the perspective of the person considering it), and giving that up or turning that down can be very undesirable even if someone has considerable doubts.
Religious traditions can also provide narratives that make various parts of living seem more meaningful and satisfying to people who buy into them. And again, even if someone has considerable doubts, they may choose to ignore them simply because they find a religious story more pleasant to consider.
A lot of this idea of a science-vs-religion conflict is fed by the "creationism" controversy. But many religions are relatively disinterested in the question of how the world came to be (much of Hinduism and Buddhism), and even among Christians, "creationism" was only ever a really big deal among a certain subsection of Protestants–the idea that Genesis should not be taken literally is ancient, St Augustine of Hippo was advocating it in the 5th century. Most of that conflict has largely been localised to the United States, with many non-Americans left wondering what all the fuss is about.
Also, just as we don't need to take religious texts literally – we don't need to take science literally either. A person can take a realist approach to scientific theories (the Standard Model, Big Bang cosmology, evolution, whatever) and believe that their theoretical constructs literally exist "out there". Or, a person can simply view them as "useful myths", which may not be literally true, but it is useful for us to pretend that they are for certain purposes. The ultimate justification for the natural sciences is their productivity in advancing technology, but you can attain that productivity irrespective of whether you believe science to be "literally true" or "literally false but nonetheless a set of useful myths".
A completely Mormon world would still believe the earth is round, enabling GPS and intercontinental travel. Bad for alcoholic beverage sales, but are those part of the definition of a modern economy? They, for example, are a little less about the theology and more about the (rather intrusively) tight-knit community.
Coming from an atheist here.
Also I think you’re using an overly narrow definition of “religion.” Traditional Chinese beliefs, or Buddhism, for example, don’t necessarily have a strong supernatural component. Some of the defining features of christianity, moreover, aren’t supernatural at all.
One thing that’s striking to me, as a foreigner, is how overtly Christian many atheists I know are. They don’t even realize that many of their views have distinct cChristian origins, instead of being part of some “universal morality.” For example: https://www.bible.com/bible/114/MAT.10.34-39.NKJV
> Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
As an Asian I’m horrified by how some Americans talk about “confronting their racist uncle at thanksgiving” and generally placing abstract justice above blood ties. But it’s a distinctly Christian mindset.
Religion has many roles, a system of social organization, a cultural identity marker and so forth.
The anthropology of religion discusses this at length.