The Catholicism society does have a
negative attitude against and have even prohibited artificial birth control.
“One might make a reasonable
assumption that nations with large Catholic populations would have birth rates,
which reflect an absence of birth control measures (less birth control = higher
birth rate). And likewise, nations which do not have a significant population
that is prohibited from using artificial birth control measures would have
lower birth rates (more birth control = lower birth rate).“
I will be examining this statement,
based on the facts and statistics collected for this research, below.
6 nations with a high percentage of Catholic citizens (65% or more)
1. BRAZIL
Percent of Catholics: 73.6%
Population: 201,009,622
Birth rate: 15.2 births/1000 population
Infant mortality rates: 20.5 deaths/1000 live births
Life expectancy: 72.79 years
GDP per capita (PPP): $ 12,000
Average years of education: 4.9 years
Population below poverty
line: 21.4%
Unemployment rate: 6.2%
Internet users: 75.982
million (37% of population)
2. MALTA
Percent of Catholics: 98%
Population: 411,277
Birth rate: 10.31 births/1000 population
Infant mortality rates: 3.65 deaths/1000 live births
Life expectancy: 79.85 years
GDP per capita (PPP): $ 26,000
*Compulsory years of education: 11
years
Population below poverty
line: 15.4%
Unemployment rate: 6.1%
Internet users: 240,600
(58.3% of population)
3. MONACO
Percent of Catholics: 90%
Population: 30,000
Birth rate: 6.85 births /1000 population
Infant mortality rates: 1.8 deaths/1000 live births
Life expectancy: 89.68 years
GDP per capita (PPP): $ 70,000
*Compulsory years of
education: 10 years
Population below poverty
line: NA%
Unemployment rate: 0%
Internet users: 23,000(76.6% of
population)
4. CROATIA
Percent of Catholics: 87.8%
Population: 4,475,611
Birth rate: 9.57 births /1000 population
Infant mortality rates: 6.06 deaths/1000 live births
Life expectancy: 72.99 years
GDP per capita (PPP): $ 18,100
*Compulsory years of
education: 8 years
Population below poverty
line: 21.1%
Unemployment rate: 20.4%
Internet users: 2.234 million
(49.9% of population)
5. POLAND
Percent of Catholics: 89.8%
Population: 38,383,809
Birth rate: 9.96 births /1000 population
Infant mortality rates: 6.42 deaths/1000 live births
Life expectancy: 76.25 years
GDP per capita (PPP): $21,000
Average years of education: 9.8 years
Population below poverty
line: 10.6%
Unemployment rate: 12.6%
Internet users: 22.452 million (56%
of population)
6. AUSTRIA
Percent of Catholics: 73,6%
Population: 8,221,646
Birth rate: 8.69 births /1000 population
Infant mortality rates: 4.26 deaths/1000 live births
Life expectancy: 79.91 years
GDP per capita (PPP): $42,500
Average years of education: 8.4 years
Population below poverty
line: 6.2%
Unemployment rate: 4.3%
Internet users: 6.143 million (75%
of population)
*The years of compulsory
education is used in some cases, instead of the average years of education.
3 nations with a low percentage of Catholic citizens (less than 5%)
1. NORWAY
Main religion(s): Evangelical
Lutheran (85.7%)
Percent of Catholics: 1%
Population: 5
051 300
Birth rate: 10.8
births /1000 population
Infant mortality rates: 3.5 deaths/1000 live births
Life expectancy: 80.32 years
GDP per capita (PPP): $55,300
Average years of education: 11.8 years
Population below poverty
line: NA%
Unemployment rate: 3.1%
Internet users: 4.431 million (88% of the population)
2. JAPAN
Main religion(s): Shintoism (83.9%).
Buddhism (71.4%)**
Percent of Catholics: 0.4%
Population: 127,253,075
Birth rate: 8.39
births /1000 population
Infant mortality rates: 2.21 deaths/ 1000 live births
Life expectancy: 83.91 years
GDP per capita (PPP): $36,200
Average years of education: 9.5 years
Population below poverty
line: 16%
Unemployment rate: 4.4%
Internet users: 99.192 million (80% of the population)
3. INDIA
Main religion(s): Hindu (80.5%)
Percent of Catholics: <1.9%
Population: 1,220,800,359
Birth rate: 20.6
births /1000 population
Infant mortality rates: 46.07 deaths/ 1000 live births
Life expectancy: 67.14 years
GDP per capita (PPP): $3,900
Average years of education: 5.1 years
Population below poverty
line: 29.8%
Unemployment rate: 9.9%
Internet users: 61.338 million (50% of the population)
** Total adherents exceeds
100% because many people belong to both Shintoism and Buddhism.
When looking at the statistics and facts that was found in this
research, there is easy to see that whether or not there is a high percent of
Catholicism in the country does not seem to have an actually correlation with
high or low birthrate. The six nations that were researched with a high
Catholic percentage were mostly concentrated in the middle (when ranging the
countries from high to low birthrate). The three nations with low Catholicism percentage
were spread out, to be on top (with the highest birthrate), number three and
second last out of the total of nine countries. Therefor there must be other
variables with a higher correlation to high birthrate.
To make the connections and relations easier to address I have
put the most important numbers into a table. Ranking from the highest to lowest
birthrate (top to bottom).
TABLE 1:
Out of the nine researched countries there were two that stand
out from the rest, with a very high birthrate; India and Brazil. There were a
few other factors that seemed to be very similar within these two nations, and
therefore might be better ways of explaining the high birthrate. First of all
they are both nations with an extremely high population, but for this to be a
reason of itself the pattern should have continued to be shown with the there
nations as well, but by looking at Norway, as the country with the third
highest birthrate, but also on of the smallest population size, as well as
Japan as the second lowest birthrate, but still a great population, there would
not be reasonable to continue to use population size as a valid reason. If we
continue to look at for example infant mortality rate, this could have a
greater impact on the high rate of birth. With India and Brazil having a
significantly higher rate of infant death mortality, and Monaco as the country
with the lowest birthrate the infant mortality is also at its absolute minimum
among these countries, at 1.8 per 1000 live births. This could be seen an
important factor when explaining the high birthrate.
When looking at GDP/capita, India and Brazil also stands out,
and hand in hand goes also the amount of people below poverty line. So there is
a high reason to believe that a low GDP/Capita will increase the rate of birth.
But although this might be true, this also leads us to the fact that Croatia
(with the 6th highest birthrate, in the middle of the clustered
nations in terms of birthrate) also has a quite low GDP/capita as well as a
high percentage of people below poverty line. This should by the previous
statement of correlation not be the case, but if we then take a look at the
average year of education/compulsory education, the correlations are clearer.
With few years of education, the rate of birth seems to increase, at least when
it comes to very few years of education. When there is around 8-12 years of
education, this doesn’t seem to make a very large difference, and might not
have a huge impact on the birthrate, but up till around 8 years can seem
necessary to have a low birthrate.
The life expectancy does also seem to correlate with the birthrate to some extent, and could be something that does have an impact on the rate of birth. Maybe people in countries with lower life expectancy do tend to have more children, to make the chance higher that there will be a child there to take care of them if they grow old and need help. A last element that I will bring into light in this research is the amount of people that uses the Internet within each nation. By looking at how many percent of the population that are Internet users, there is actually a possible connection with the birthrate. The less people that are Internet users, the higher the birth rate seem to be. This could be a result of information about contraception and so on, which will result in a lower birthrate.
The life expectancy does also seem to correlate with the birthrate to some extent, and could be something that does have an impact on the rate of birth. Maybe people in countries with lower life expectancy do tend to have more children, to make the chance higher that there will be a child there to take care of them if they grow old and need help. A last element that I will bring into light in this research is the amount of people that uses the Internet within each nation. By looking at how many percent of the population that are Internet users, there is actually a possible connection with the birthrate. The less people that are Internet users, the higher the birth rate seem to be. This could be a result of information about contraception and so on, which will result in a lower birthrate.
Although there is a higher chance that both the amount of people
below poverty line, unemployment rate and Internet users are more connected
with the GDP/Capita and economy in the country, there is also a possibility as
we have seen in this short research that there is a correlation between
birthrate and some of these factors themselves. Or at least does this show us
that the economy and GDP/capita in a country are more connected with the
birthrate, than the percent of Catholicism.
From the findings in this research I would not see the examined
assumption as highly valid. The findings do not show any correlation between
high birthrate and high percentage of Catholicism. Therefor there is highly
likely that the prohibition against birth control among Catholic populations,
doesn’t work very well in the real life. I do believe that especially among the
younger generations, this is not seen as a valid rule and are not valued in
their everyday life.
The variables that I would say have the most impact are the
GDP/capita, as well as education.
Recourses:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_ave_yea_of_sch_of_adu-education-average-years-schooling-adults
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