December 9, 2007

"The Demographic Disaster of 2006"

An excerpt from my new Vdare.com column:

I've been following the birth statistics published annually by the federal National Center for Health Statistics since the late 1990s. I thought I'd seen it all.

But even I was shocked by the new data for 2006 released last Wednesday, December 5.

The bottom line: 2006 was a demographic disaster. All the bad trends of this decade suddenly got worse while the good trends turned around and started moving in the wrong direction.

(This is "preliminary data," but it includes 99.9 percent of all births in 2006, with most of the 0.1 percent missing concentrated in Louisiana and South Carolina.)

The Main Stream Media [MSM]'s take on this report: the big news was that the teen birthrate went up in 2006 after 15 years of decline. That's because being against teen pregnancy is the only "value judgment" about demographic trends that is mentionable in polite society.

But there are a lot more alarming numbers buried in the data. For example:

bullet

1] The Illegitimacy Tidal Wave of 2006.

From 2005 to 2006, the number of babies born to married women went up 0.5%, but the number born to unmarried women went up 7.6%. (The increase in teen births is only a minor factor in the illegitimacy surge—most of the growth in out-of-wedlock births was to women in their 20s.)

The number of babies born to married white women went down by 0.4 percent, while the number of babies born to unmarried Hispanic women increased by 9.6 percent.

# of babies: 2006 v. 2005


Married

Unmarried

All Races

0.5%

7.6%

Whites

-0.4%

6.5%

Hispanics

1.6%

9.6%

Blacks

2.9%

6.9%

Maybe, as President Bush has assured us, "family values don't stop at the Rio Grande". But marriage sure seems to. An amazing half (49.9 percent to be exact) of all Hispanic women who gave birth in 2006 were unmarried.

Rutgers sociologist David Popenoe, co-director of the National Marriage Project, wrote recently:

"…Hispanics seem to have assimilated into the American culture of secular individualism more than the reverse. For example, the unwed birth percentage among Hispanics has jumped from 19 percent in 1980 to 48 percent in 2005 and stands well above the percentage for the non-Hispanic White population. Hispanics have the same divorce rate as non-Hispanic Whites, and in recent years their rate of non-marital cohabitation has grown faster than that of any other immigrant group. These trends contradict earlier expectations that Hispanics might bring this nation a new wave of family traditionalism."[The State of Our Unions |The Social Health of Marriage in America]

The percentage of Hispanic babies born illegitimate still trails the black percentage. But the birth rate for unmarried Hispanic women is now substantially higher than for unmarried black women—and three times higher than for unmarried white women.

The illegitimacy rate is not only increasing—it's accelerating, as you can see by comparing the change from 2005 to 2006 (+1.6 percentage points for the whole country) versus the change from 2004 to 2005 (+1.1 percentage points).


% illegitimate


1990

2004

2005

2006

All Races

28.0%

35.8%

36.9%

38.5%

Whites

16.9%

24.5%

25.3%

26.6%

Hispanics

36.7%

46.4%

48.0%

49.9%

Blacks

66.5%

69.3%

69.9%

70.7%

I don't think anybody knows for sure what caused 2006’s unexpected surge in illegitimacy.

But I'll make a suggestion: [MORE]

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

on

39 comments:

  1. Anonymous12/9/07, 10:18 PM

    Right on schedule.

    http://www.glumbert.com/media/idiocracy

    ReplyDelete
  2. Garland12/9/07, 10:42 PM

    "My conclusion: Last summer, economic historian Gregory Clark dropped an intellectual bombshell in his book A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World. He pointed out that, during England's long rise from 1200 to 1800—leading up to its invention of the Industrial Revolution (perhaps the greatest gift any single country has given humanity—England's social system operated so that those most likely to provide the next generation with the best start in life had the most children."

    The Industrial Revolution was the greatest gift? Or the long rise to it?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous12/9/07, 10:42 PM

    I saw this article in the Salt Lake paper and was going to send it to you. Go figure.

    The whole issue has (predictably) set off an offensive by Planned Parenthood to change Utah's sex-ed policy, which is pretty much abstinence-based.

    Heretofore Utahns have done a good job keeping their kids from pre-marital sex, and it has some of the lowest teen birthrates, out-of-wedlock birthrates, and abortion rates in the country.

    But - of all the coincidences! - as soon as the Latin demographic pig starts snaking its way through the python our teen birthrates go up. The article didn't mention that Latin thing, of course. SO now the whole of Utah's successful sex-ed strategy is going to have to change because of one group of people, who weren't even invited here.

    That might actually be a good thing. Mormon politicians have been pretty supportive of illegal immigration. If Utah's Mormons start seeing that Latin teen birthrates are changing their preferred sex-ed policies they might finally start seeing the light on immigration.

    Or maybe not. But I do always try to look for the silver lining.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Steve Sailer12/9/07, 10:55 PM

    "The Industrial Revolution was the greatest gift? Or the long rise to it?"

    The escape from the Malthusian Trap made possible by the Industrial Revolution.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous12/9/07, 11:20 PM

    >If Utah's Mormons start seeing that Latin teen birthrates are changing their preferred sex-ed policies they might finally start seeing the light on immigration.<

    you were never taught demography in school as deliberate policy. the result is that you're unable to comprehend that it's a little too late to "start seeing the light on immigration". the reason demography was not taught was to ensure that white students would be less likely to secure the white majority's destiny in this country.

    unlike yourself, america's founding stock and their descendants were acutely aware of the role demographics played in human affairs. they expressed demographic realities in an ideology known as manifest destiny. manifest destiny was as american as apple pie. and, as such, manifest destiny was later targeted for assassination by america's new elite. kill that ideology and you essentially reverse the demography of those people.

    as has been posted on this website previously: the 2010 census is going to be a total shocker. the next census will inform you, mr & mrs america, that the country you invented, pioneered and built is no longer yours.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous12/9/07, 11:37 PM

    Very nutrient dense. Saw this first at VDARE.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous12/10/07, 12:19 AM

    " Steve Sailer said...

    "The Industrial Revolution was the greatest gift? Or the long rise to it?"

    The escape from the Malthusian Trap made possible by the Industrial Revolution."

    Perhaps the Malthusian Trap was only deferred, not defeated. I'm often inclined to think that we are on the verge of a new dark-age. Malthus may yet have the last laugh.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous12/10/07, 12:44 AM

    Hmmm, wasn't this how the French lost Algeria?

    Western medicine and technology allowed the Arab population to increase past the Malthusian limits. The surplus Arab population moved to the heretofore empty coastal region the French had settled and cultivated. Then they kicked the Frogs out.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous12/10/07, 1:05 AM

    Steve,
    What are the odds of a more intelligent minority making it against the uneducated barbaric hordes?

    Obviously the MSM set are not going to wake up until the whites are a minority, a fact they will initially hype and celebrate as their long sought for victory.

    When the whites are then besieged by discrimination and violence, as is the case in the "New South Africa", some outlets will be forced to wake up.

    But can the whites survive such a scenario based on their superior decision-making, skills base and less emotion-driven lifestyles?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous12/10/07, 1:10 AM

    Everyone mocks Malthus for not predicting the "green revolution". But nobody else predicted it either!

    And I don't think it a coincidence that the same island produced the Industrial Revolution and minds like Malthus and Smith.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous12/10/07, 1:45 AM

    Isn't it everybody's own business in a society based on individual liberty, whether one gets married and has kids or not?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous12/10/07, 2:21 AM

    But can the whites survive such a scenario based on their superior decision-making, skills base and less emotion-driven lifestyles?

    I think whites can, but I seriously doubt democracy can. It's going to be one or the other.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous12/10/07, 2:42 AM

    Of interest perhaps:

    Canberra signals immigration move

    IQ AND RACE -
    All brains are the same color

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous12/10/07, 3:04 AM

    Canberra signals immigration move

    I see that Australia's new Labour government, learning from Britain and the USA, has wasted no time opening the floodgates to massive levels of minority immigrants in order to ensure a permanent leftwing majority.

    The old government talked the talk, but it never really walked the walk on controlling immigration to Australia, which is higher percentage-wise than immigration to the US.

    When the "refugees" start coming en masse, however, I think the Aussies will rebel. Labour's made a huge mistake.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous12/10/07, 7:56 AM

    It's an economic issue. If you're young and have decent earning prospects, putting off kids seems to be a sound choice. Due to longer hours and fewer benefits, kids are a career-killer today, and most young couples can't afford to get by on one income anymore. Another issue is that getting married has no significant benefit for a dual-income couple.

    Taking care of little kids, especially if you have more than one, is a full-time job, and it is not easy. You know how often you've got to change diapers when you've got two in diapers at once? Something like every hour when they're awake, and then you have clean up after them in other ways, dress them, feed them, etc. I watch my kids all by myself a couple days a week. That's what you've got to do as a dad these days when both parents are working, which is necessary for most of us. My unmarried friends (most of them are unmarried, unfortunately) definitely do not envy me.

    If you're a young, single woman with no real prospects, having kids is not such a bad choice, because it opens up a wealth of resources and full medical coverage. It is in fact a better job than most young, unmarried mothers could find otherwise. Once the kid is too old for her to keep the benefits, the kid goes to public school, and she can have another or maybe finally get a job.

    Another thing people are overlooking is the problem of longer lifespans. Some time ago, I checked wealth comparisons between different age cohorts over the last century. Apparently, young people are relatively poorer than they have ever been. In fact, they are probably poorer in absolute terms than they have been since WWII.

    The relative poverty of the young means that the expenses involved in raising children, especially housing, are pushed out of reach by richer, infertile older people with money to burn.

    As long as the middle-aged and old continue their extravagant lifestyle at the expense of the young (Al Gore's middle-aged acolytes, jetting around on trips to Europe while hypocritically whining about global warming make me want to puke) this will continue. The age at which people can expect enough income and security to raise children these days is pushing up against the female fertility barrier.

    Families that survive will be those where grandparents help support their adult children and grandchildren either through childcare or housing expenses. On the other hand, you will see an increasingly indebted state increasingly responsible for raising the children of unemployed single mothers. It is a disaster in the making, and can't hold for too much longer. Maybe another presidential term. I really don't know, but things will start falling apart soon. This is why public institutions don't work in third world countries.

    My personal experience with this is that out of 15 maternal and paternal cousins in my family over the age of 18 with an average age in the late 20s, all from middle class families, only two of us have kids. At least we're both married...

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous12/10/07, 8:32 AM

    In purely biological as opposed to social terms teenage pregnancy is a good thing. The chances of spina bifida, still birth, low weight & other birthing problems rise at a steady rate from age 25. The chance of mutation goes up as well which affects future generations too. It is alleged that the haemophilia which affected Europe's crowned heads was a mutation in Queen Victoria's DNA - her father having been told to do his duty late in life if Brtain was to have a monarch..

    How we arrange society so that tenagers are either economicly or temperamentally likely to be good mothers is another question. Anecdotally it was not uncommon in previous generations for a baby of an unmarried teen to be declared a "late baby" of her mother. Since women about 40 are clearly healthier than ever in history this is technically a feasible option but would nowadays could no longer be done unofficially.

    http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020415/story.html

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous12/10/07, 9:57 AM

    Steve neglected to mention the extremely low illegitimacy rates of Asian women.

    Note that non-Hispanic white babies are still more than 50%, but that will change soon because of differential birth rates.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous12/10/07, 10:40 AM

    Amidst all the doom and gloom it should be pointed out that the group of whites and Asians who are creating all the high-tech stuff in the US that are making life more and more complicated for those with lower IQs is still managing to have offspring and to raise them in the context of stable marriages.

    ReplyDelete
  19. James12/10/07, 11:20 AM

    The NY Times had a little sentence about this on their front page telling you to go read about it on E4 or whatever. It said something like "Teen Birthrate on the rise. Will Bush admit that abstinence only education isn't working?" But then you open it to the page and see the graph with it broken down by race. Immigration is non-negotiable for these people so it makes sense that they'd never mention it, never even consider it.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous12/10/07, 12:21 PM

    Immigration, multiculturalism, or democracy. Pick any two.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anonymous12/10/07, 1:50 PM

    Anonymous: Amidst all the doom and gloom it should be pointed out that the group of whites and Asians who are creating all the high-tech stuff in the US that are making life more and more complicated for those with lower IQs is still managing to have offspring and to raise them in the context of stable marriages.

    Prove it.

    I know of absolutely no evidence that this is happening anywhere in the civilized world [outside of Utah, Idaho, portions of Israel, and maybe Iceland]:

    List of countries and territories by fertility rate
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate

    IQ and the Wealth of Nations
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations

    The Baby Gap: Explaining Red and Blue
    http://www.isteve.com/babygap.htm

    Remember, most demographers believe that you need about 2.10 children per woman per fertile lifetime just to tread water.

    Anything less than 2.10, and your population is in free fall.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anonymous12/10/07, 1:52 PM

    Baby tax needed to save planet, claims expert

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anonymous12/10/07, 2:51 PM

    Well, I'm pregnant, what about you slackers?

    ReplyDelete
  24. Anonymous12/10/07, 3:15 PM

    Baby tax... of course the same professor would never support immigration controls - the real source of population growth in Australia. But we must control those pesky Anglos! God forbid there were more of them in the world.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Anonymous12/10/07, 3:47 PM

    Darwin writes that there are mitigating circumstances.

    "A most important obstacle in civilised countries to an increase in the number of men of a superior class has been strongly insisted on by Mr. Greg and Mr. Galton,* namely, the fact that the very poor and reckless, who are often degraded by vice, almost invariably marry early, whilst the careful and frugal, who are generally otherwise
    virtuous, marry late in life, so that they may be able to support
    themselves and their children in comfort. Those who marry early
    produce within a given period not only a greater number of generations, but, as shewn by Dr. Duncan,*(2) they produce many more
    children. The children, moreover, that are borne by mothers during the prime of life are heavier and larger, and therefore probably more
    vigorous, than those born at other periods. Thus the reckless, degraded, and often vicious members of society, tend to increase at
    a quicker rate than the provident and generally virtuous members."

    However,

    "There are, however, some checks to this downward tendency. We have
    seen that the intemperate suffer from a high rate of mortality, and
    the extremely profligate leave few offspring."

    Low IQ does correlate with higher morbidity and mortality rates. Issue of psychosis, homicide rates and drug use correlate with lower fertility and survival rates.

    "According to Health Canada, the infant mortality in First Nations communities ­ 6.4 per 1,000 live births in 2000 is on the decline, but still above the national average of 5.2 deaths per 1,000 live births.

    Davis said aboriginal infant morbidity, which takes into account illnesses after birth, is two to three times higher."

    Youth mortality rates also vary significantly by race/ethnic origin.

    In addition, the wealthy in the US, assets over a million dollars show an average age of 57 with an average number of children as three.

    "Who is the prototypical American millionaire? What would he tell you about himself?(*)

    * I am a fifty-seven-year-old male, married with three children."

    The Millionaire Next Door
    The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy
    By Thomas J. Stanley, Ph. D. and William D. Danko, Ph. D.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Steve Sailer12/10/07, 4:21 PM

    Back in the 1990s, I read through capsule biographies of all Fortune 500 CEOs and of the top 125 touring golf pros, two groups of successful, generally conservative men. I guesstimated that they averaged close to four children each. Somebody could look this up with new information and see if my casual observation holds up.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Anonymous12/10/07, 5:53 PM

    The Millionaire Next Door
    The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy
    By Thomas J. Stanley, Ph. D. and William D. Danko, Ph. D.

    Stanley is wrong about a lot of stuff. His books are extremely biased in in favor of people who got rich without the help of prestigious careers or degrees, but it doesn't reflect reality.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Anonymous12/10/07, 6:11 PM

    Mr. Sailer,

    You mention rising black fertility in your VDare column. Do you have any idea to what extent this is driven by African immigration? In the Washington DC area, there are an enormous number of Ethiopian and Somali immigrants. The (South Asian-operated) 7-11 a block from my home sells injera bread, and seemingly every parking garage in Northern Virginia is operated by a group of people from the Horn of Africa. While they are the most common African immigrants in this area, there are plenty of other groups represented, from the African university graduates my wife's company brings in to meet their AA obligations, to the cashiers at Home Depot. This is something new in the US, and it seems plausible that it might be driving up the rate. Can you comment?

    Thanks,

    Cyrus

    ReplyDelete
  29. Anonymous12/10/07, 9:37 PM

    Families that survive will be those where grandparents help support their adult children and grandchildren either through childcare or housing expenses.

    And that's not such a bad thing. Why would we want a society filled with a bunch of people who won't give their kids a boost (not a hammock) in life?

    Those parents who are smart enough and decent enough to help their kids reach the point where they're economically independent SHOULD have more grandkids.

    Back in the 1990s, I read through capsule biographies of all Fortune 500 CEOs and of the top 125 touring golf pros, two groups of successful, generally conservative men. I guesstimated that they averaged close to four children each.

    Part of the problem is that a CEO in the 1990s was not, for the most part, a baby boomer. Things have changed rapidly in the decade since. I remember looking at the bios of a few Army generals not long ago. Most had only 1 or 2 kids, including Petraeus (2) and Wesley Clark (1). And these are manly men with wives who, for the most part, couldn't really have serious careers.

    A brief glimpse at the latest Forbes 400 shows the average # of kids of the top 25 is 2.44 - Brin, Page, and Allen having none.

    The average of the top 100 is exactly 3.1 kids.

    And why does billionaire Paul Allen have such bad teeth?

    ReplyDelete
  30. Steve Sailer12/10/07, 10:10 PM

    "The average of the top 100 is exactly 3.1 kids."

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Anonymous12/11/07, 12:36 PM

    Kids as Status Symbols and "Competitive Birthing"

    Ronald Bailey | August 6, 2007, 10:18am

    "NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday ran a piece about the current baby boom among the very well-off. To wit:

    The newest status symbol for the nation's most affluent families is fast becoming a big brood of kids.

    Historically, the country-club set has had the smallest number of kids. But in the past 10 years, the number of high-end earners who are having three or more kids has shot up nearly 30 percent.

    Some say the trend is driven by a generation of over-achieving career women who have quit work and transferred all of their competitive energy to baby making.
    They call it "competitive birthing."


    I won't resist tooting my own horn, but NPR is about ten years behind the times in noticing this trend. Back in the 20th century (1997 to be exact), my article in slate.com, "Kids as Status Symbols" discussed this demographic shift.

    So, you've got the beach house compound on Nantucket, the 63-foot Hinckley sailboat, the corporate jet, the nanny, and the gardener; and your stay-at-home spouse with the advanced academic degree heads up the local United Way campaign. What other acquisition might serve your high economic and social status? How about having some more kids?...

    But recently I have noticed that many of my wealthier acquaintances, people who live in tonier suburbs like Potomac, Md., or Darien, Conn., are bucking the trend toward smaller families. Many have three or four kids. Some intriguing, if sketchy, data suggest that at the highest levels of wealth and income, the trend is toward larger, not smaller, families.

    For example, Mendelsohn Research--a company that supplies consumer research to advertisers, advertising agencies, and publishing companies--offers some suggestive data. Mendelsohn's most recent annual survey shows that those households with children where the annual family income exceeds $250,000 are blessed with an average of 2.3 children currently at home. That is 0.5 kids more than the upper-middle-class average and the same number as the lowest census income category. And because the Mendelsohn data don't include kids who have left home--while the census data do--the number of children born in these very wealthy families could be even higher.

    One other interesting figure comes from the very tiptop of the wealth scale. The households that compose the Forbes 400 richest Americans average 2.88 children. That's 1.08 kids more than the upper-middle class can afford.

    These added kids provide many opportunities for status signaling. Wealthy parents can talk endlessly at the country club about the costs of Maine summer camps, high-school semesters abroad, little Andrew's sailing trophies, and what hunt Sarah rides with regularly. And of course, there are schools and universities. Did they prep at St. Albans or Choate? How well are they doing at Harvard, Yale, or Middlebury? Being able to provide lavishly for a large number of children shows that you've really got it made.

    This is not to say that rich people don't love their kids. Rather, kids today are not only little bundles of joy but also are perhaps the ultimate symbols of worldly success and status. Perhaps we are now seeing a new social phenomenon--trophy kids.

    It's interesting to contemplate what this trend might portend for the future of population growth. Generally, demographers have assumed that fertility rates will continue to decline as more of the planet's people become wealthier. Falling fertility would mean that world population could follow the trajectory of the U.N.'s low variant population projection which would result in a total population of about 5.5 billion in 2100. That's 1 billon fewer than the world's current population.

    Now consider the case in which the U.S. economy grows by 3 percent per year until 2100. Assuming a population of 400 million, that would mean that average incomes would be over $500,000 per year in real dollars. The demographic inflexion point for more kids is around $250,000 per year. Could we be looking at a new baby boom after 2050?"

    It must be a very small percentage of the total population that will earn 500,000. Assuming wealth concentration correlates with higher IQ, is mass immigration (pushing the population to 400 million) a wealth transfer strategy that is adaptive for the high IQ and enhances reproductive fitness?

    ReplyDelete
  32. Anonymous12/11/07, 2:01 PM

    And that's not such a bad thing. Why would we want a society filled with a bunch of people who won't give their kids a boost (not a hammock) in life?

    Those parents who are smart enough and decent enough to help their kids reach the point where they're economically independent SHOULD have more grandkids.

    -anon

    It goes beyond a "boost". Many of the parents who helped their kids through college are still not going to get grandkids.

    What I mean is grandparents will have to be actively involved in helping their kids get by on an ongoing basis in many cases, e.g. babysitting when parents are working, and in many others helping with housing.

    The most prolific young man I know, who is 29 and has six kids already, has a mother who was not really a very good mom, but who has turned out to be a reliable grandma who helps take care of his kids while he runs his landscaping business (all legal labor). According to my friend, his mom was a "hippy" and gave him zero financial support, but she's great with little kids and her babysitting has turned out to be invaluable.

    In the meanwhile, many of my more fortunate friends (although not necessarily more successful), who got a "boost", have decided they can't handle family until their life situation is more secure, and their parents are too busy either working themselves or enjoying a luxurious retirement to help out.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Anonymous12/11/07, 5:50 PM

    3-5 children isn't a large family; it's normal. 1-2 children is small; more than 5 is large. 3-5 is normal. Rich people are just behaving normally, which is what you'd expect in a capitalist economy that rewards intelligence and drive. Rich people having a normal number of children is a sign of healthy self-esteem and confidence in the future. It's also a sign of a healthy marriage, and remember that under our legal system, divorce destroys wealth.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Anonymous12/11/07, 8:51 PM

    The households that compose the Forbes 400 richest Americans average 2.88 children.

    The Forbes 400 is different from the "upper middle class" - they're richer. That's an old joke, modified, but seriously an upper middle class family often maintains its lifestyle with 2 incomes. The folks on the Forbes 400 are billionaires - they don't need two incomes, or even one.

    Most Forbes 400 members aren't naturally inclined to have large families. There are a few I noticed with REALLY big families - Richard Schulze of Best Buy (10 kids); Fred Smith of Fedex (10); the guy who owns Pulte homes (14); and James Sorenson and John Huntsman, 2 Mormon billionaires in my state (8 or 9 each).

    What you really have to look at is why men do or do not have kids:

    1) Not able to attract women - any Forbes 400 member, no matter how ugly, can do that.

    2) Don't feel they can afford a family - obviously not.

    3) Difficulty conceiving - they can afford the best fertility treatments available, and they can easily replace their wife if she's the one with the problem.

    So the real average you'd be comparing the Forbes 400 to isn't the average man, but the average man who IS married and who feels he can afford to have kids.

    Remember the average number of 2 or so kids per man is the average. Take out the people who aren't married, "can't afford to" have kids, or have some difficulty conceiving and the number gets quite a bit larger - a lot closer to the 2.88 average for the Forbes 400.

    They're not having kids for status symbols. They're having the same number of kids most men would if they could afford to and could find a wife.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Anonymous12/12/07, 10:46 AM

    They're having the same number of kids most men would if they could afford to and could find a wife.

    Isn't that the point? Idiocracy proclaimed a dysgenic effect because high IQ couples were not reproducing. The common theme that has arisen is that high IQ is not adaptive because it does not enhance reproductive fitness. Yet the high IQs with net assets as low as a million dollars show higher fertility/lower morbidity/lower mortality rates than blacks, Hispanics or Mormons. The truth is the exact opposite of what Idiocracy suggests.

    Moreover, it's not a new concept. Darwin quotes Greg, in the Descent of Man;

    "The careless, squalid, unaspiring Irishman multiplies like rabbits: the frugal, foreseeing, self-respecting, ambitious Scot, stern in his morality, spiritual in his faith, sagacious and disciplined in his intelligence, passes his best years in struggle and in celibacy, marries late, and leaves few behind him. Given a land originally peopled by a thousand Saxons and a thousand Celts- and in a dozen generations five-sixths of the population would be Celts, but five-sixths of the property, of the
    power, of the intellect, would belong to the one-sixth of Saxons
    that remained. In the eternal 'struggle for existence,' it would be the inferior and less favoured race that had prevailed- and
    prevailed by virtue not of its good qualities but of its faults."

    He goes on to suggest, however, that the apparent dysgenic effect is mitigated by morbidity/mortality etc and suggests that the "careless, squalid, (and) unaspiring" need to have a birth rate twice the size of the prudent for the maladaptive effects described to play out.

    At issue really, is Master Sailer's suggestion of a "demographic disaster". The numbers just don't add up. Prudence, intelligence, wealth and delaying family life appears adaptive and has been for, apparently, for a very long time.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Anonymous12/13/07, 4:02 PM

    Affordable family formation seems to have something to do with it.

    The number of non-Hispanic white births per year between 2000 and 2006 rose more than 10% in Idaho, Montana, and the Dakotas. Several other large, sparsely populated states showed similar, albeit smaller, rises. (Yes, white births in North Dakota incrased more than 10%: 6,395 in 2000, 7,110 in 2006.)

    It dropped more than 10%, however, in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Jersey. In Rhode Island, white birth rates have gone into an apparent meltdown: 7,825 in 2000 to 6,123 in 2006, accounting for just over 60% of the births in the state.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Anonymous12/21/07, 8:24 AM

    And ABC World News Tonight, with Charles Gibson, does a report on the increase in births in the US and who do they use to highlight this in the report? White mothers! That's right. White births decrease by .4% and latinos by 9.6%, so ABC shows us a lily-white mother. You can't tell me that these people want you in the dark.
    http://incogman.wordpress.com/

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  38. Anonymous12/23/07, 8:37 PM

    In re: The CEO's of the Fortune 500 - the number of children per MAN is a highly misleading statistic.

    What you want is the number of children per WOMAN.

    You can compute these sorts of numbers for almost any famous personality:

    Ronald Reagan
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan#Marriages_and_children
    Jane Wyman: 1 natural child [Maureen], 1 adopted child [Michael]
    Nancy Davis: 2 children
    (3 natural children) ÷ (2 women) = 1.5 TFR

    Rudy Giuliani
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Giuliani#Marriages_and_family
    Regina Peruggi: 0 children
    Donna Hanover: 2 children
    Judith Nathan: 1 child adopted in her second marriage
    (2 natural children) ÷ (3 women) = 0.667 TFR

    Bob Dole
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dole#Personal_life
    Phyllis Holden: 1 child
    Elizabeth Hanford: 0 children
    (1 child) ÷ (2 women) = 0.5 TFR

    I've had Mickey Rooney on the brain for a few weeks now [I can't get his performance in A Midsummer Night's Dream out of my head - I saw it the other night on Turner Classic Movies], and he's an outstanding example of this:

    Mickey Rooney
    http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001682/bio
    Jan Rooney: 0 children
    Carolyn Hockett: 2 children
    Marge Lane: 0 children
    Carolyn Mitchell: 4 children
    Elaine Devry: 0 children
    Martha Vickers: 1 child
    Betty Jane Rase: 2 children
    Ava Gardner: 0 children

    Martha Vickers went on to have 2 more children, with Manuel Rojas, and Jan Rooney [the current wife] had a child by a previous marriage [or an affair], so the grand total appears to be about 9 + 3 = 12 children, yielding:

    (12 children) ÷ (8 women) = 1.5 TFR

    And all of that was before Griswold -v- Connecticut & Roe -v- Wade: Just to tread water, these women should have had

    (2.10 children per woman) X (8 women) = 16.8 = 17 children.

    But, of course, they didn't.

    PS: To the best of my knowledge, unless Ron [Prescott] Reagan divorces his wife [or has an affair], then Ronald [Wilson] Reagan's bloodline will soon disappear from the face of the earth: Maureen died without natural children, and Patti Davis is now too old to make children [as is Ron Reagan's wife, Doria Palmieri, who is actually 7 years older than he].

    PPS: I can't find any evidence that Bob Dole's daughter, Robin Dole, ever made any children herself, so, as far as I can tell, the Dole bloodline is about to end, as well.

    PPPS: Rooney was the only true Hollywood celebrity to attend the Gipper's funeral [I guess you can argue over whether or not Tom Selleck is really A-List material].

    PPPPS: I fear that if you delve too deeply into "High-IQ" fertility rates, then, quite consistently, you will find the sort of catastrophic disaster which I was talking to "Mary Pat" about in this thread:

    The summit of the nerd pyramid
    http://isteve.blogspot.com/2007/11/summit-of-nerd-pyramid_24.html

    She & her six "High-IQ" college pals have made all of about 6 children amongst them, for a total fertility rate down around 1.0 [at which point your society effectively halves in size about once every 35 years].

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  39. Anonymous12/25/07, 5:00 AM

    What you want is the number of children per WOMAN. - Lucius Vorenus

    I don't see how. The fertility of the spouses of successful people is hardly of interest to us. What we want to know is how many children successful people are inclined to have, whether they are women or men. Whether for men or women, the goal (just to tread water) would be 2.1 children.

    It doesn't matter how many children Chris Hitchens's first wife had, if they aren't all his children. Spouses, after all, aren't necessarily inclined towards the same ideology. Stephen Hawking is an atheist, but I understand that his first wife was at least somewhat religious. What if after their divorce she married Ned Flanders and had 5 more kids? Do you count those kids in the atheist column just because the first spouse of the former Mrs. Hawking was an atheist?

    You can compute these sorts of numbers for almost any famous personality:

    I don't think that computing the fertility for random political or economic celebrities is necessarily a valid comparison, unless you consider a large number of them. Perhaps not even then. These people have often made certain sacrifices to further their careers that otherwise they might not have made.

    The wondrous beauty Nicole Kidman, for example, has no biological offspring of her own; but she has a sister with 4 children, and that doesn't include the children of any other siblings she may have. So at least half of her genes are already represented in the next generation.

    So unless you're implying that Reagan or Dole or Giuliani had some marvelous new allele that specifically needs to be passed on to further human evolution then it's not that relevant.

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