Gallup: New Index Shows Least-, Most-Accepting Countries for Migrants
The least acceptive countries are in Eastern Europe, constituting nine of the top ten – the sole exception is Israel.
The most positive country is Iceland, with Sweden in 7th place.
Japan isn’t really the center of “basedness” that that dissident right paints it as; it is still in the immigration-welcoming First World cluster, though towards the more skeptical end of the spectrum.
The full list is attached below.
It is based on positive/negative responses to the following three questions:
- Immigrants living in this country
- An immigrant becoming your neighbor
- An immigrant marrying one of your close relatives
Immigration acceptance is positive correlated with education, youth, and higher incomes.
Curiously, the Russian sphere is the major exception that:
The CIS region is a notable exception to each of these global patterns — acceptance is low regardless of education, generation, income level, or whether residents live in urban or rural areas. However, in the CIS, those with less education tend to be slightly more accepting.
Also:
But in some places, who these migrants are may factor more heavily into whether they are accepted. For example, in Russia, where the index score is among the lowest in the world, more than 40% of residents say “it depends” to each of the questions.
This makes a lot of sense. It is strange that West European countries make fewer such distinctions.
| Migrant Acceptance Index | |
| Iceland | 8.26 |
| New Zealand | 8.25 |
| Rwanda | 8.16 |
| Sierra Leone | 8.05 |
| Mali | 8.03 |
| Australia | 7.98 |
| Sweden | 7.92 |
| Nigeria | 7.76 |
| Burkina Faso | 7.74 |
| Ireland | 7.74 |
| Norway | 7.73 |
| Ivory Coast | 7.71 |
| Benin | 7.67 |
| Luxembourg | 7.54 |
| Netherlands | 7.46 |
| Bangladesh | 7.45 |
| Spain | 7.44 |
| United States | 7.27 |
| Chad | 7.26 |
| Albania | 7.22 |
| Switzerland | 7.21 |
| Senegal | 7.17 |
| Germany | 7.09 |
| Denmark | 7.09 |
| Congo (Kinshasa) | 7.05 |
| Guinea | 7.01 |
| Togo | 6.96 |
| Ghana | 6.91 |
| Venezuela | 6.82 |
| Congo (Brazzaville) | 6.81 |
| Taiwan | 6.8 |
| Philippines | 6.77 |
| Uruguay | 6.77 |
| Zimbabwe | 6.7 |
| Lesotho | 6.65 |
| Portugal | 6.65 |
| Niger | 6.64 |
| United Kingdom | 6.61 |
| Finland | 6.58 |
| Kenya | 6.51 |
| Argentina | 6.51 |
| Paraguay | 6.5 |
| Italy | 6.49 |
| South Korea | 6.49 |
| Tunisia | 6.47 |
| France | 6.46 |
| Japan | 6.42 |
| Morocco | 6.39 |
| Saudi Arabia | 6.39 |
| Brazil | 6.38 |
| Cameroon | 6.36 |
| Central African Republic | 6.36 |
| Peru | 6.33 |
| Nepal | 6.28 |
| Belgium | 6.16 |
| Liberia | 6.14 |
| Colombia | 6.13 |
| Ecuador | 6.13 |
| Gabon | 6.12 |
| Malawi | 6.1 |
| Vietnam | 6.08 |
| Austria | 6.06 |
| Dominican Republic | 6.03 |
| Nicaragua | 6 |
| Hong Kong | 5.89 |
| Libya | 5.79 |
| United Arab Emirates | 5.79 |
| Armenia | 5.78 |
| El Salvador | 5.73 |
| South Sudan | 5.63 |
| Mauritius | 5.58 |
| Uganda | 5.45 |
| Costa Rica | 5.44 |
| Bolivia | 5.42 |
| Cyprus | 5.41 |
| Turkmenistan | 5.36 |
| Haiti | 5.31 |
| Mauritania | 5.29 |
| Madagascar | 5.24 |
| Singapore | 5.21 |
| Ethiopia | 5.19 |
| Chile | 5.17 |
| Zambia | 5.15 |
| Honduras | 5.15 |
| China | 5.11 |
| Botswana | 5.1 |
| Somalia | 4.99 |
| South Africa | 4.98 |
| Malta | 4.95 |
| India | 4.9 |
| Uzbekistan | 4.9 |
| Kuwait | 4.85 |
| Tanzania | 4.82 |
| Mexico | 4.75 |
| Northern Cyprus | 4.66 |
| Kyrgyzstan | 4.59 |
| Guatemala | 4.59 |
| Slovenia | 4.42 |
| Tajikistan | 4.39 |
| Panama | 4.36 |
| Azerbaijan | 4.34 |
| Kazakhstan | 4.28 |
| Kosovo | 4.17 |
| Iran | 3.95 |
| Indonesia | 3.93 |
| Yemen | 3.93 |
| Palestinian Territories | 3.9 |
| Lebanon | 3.89 |
| Moldova | 3.8 |
| Cambodia | 3.65 |
| Egypt | 3.5 |
| Iraq | 3.42 |
| Belarus | 3.38 |
| Greece | 3.34 |
| Poland | 3.31 |
| Turkey | 3.27 |
| Ukraine | 3.15 |
| Georgia | 3.05 |
| Jordan | 2.99 |
| Mongolia | 2.99 |
| Myanmar | 2.96 |
| Romania | 2.93 |
| Lithuania | 2.72 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 2.71 |
| Thailand | 2.69 |
| Russia | 2.6 |
| Afghanistan | 2.51 |
| Pakistan | 2.47 |
| Bulgaria | 2.42 |
| Croatia | 2.39 |
| Estonia | 2.37 |
| Czech Republic | 2.26 |
| Latvia | 2.04 |
| Israel | 1.87 |
| Slovakia | 1.83 |
| Serbia | 1.8 |
| Hungary | 1.69 |
| Montenegro | 1.63 |
| Macedonia | 1.47 |
.
Must be a result of the decades of pro-immigration propaganda. But yes, “immigrant” is of course a ridiculous category that only makes sense if you believe all people everywhere are fundamentally just the same (i.e. progressive Westerners).
Pretty depressing list though. Sweden really seems to be the most thoroughly brainwashed 1st world country ever (and that’s the result of maybe 30-40 years), something must be deeply wrong with that place.
For what it’s worth, some of the results are rather puzzling to me, based on anecdotal evidence. For example, Switzerland scores 7.21, while it is notoriously difficult to actually immigrate to Switzerland, even for Austrians and Germans. The residents of the locale have to vote on whether they accept the newcomer. In fact, I have heard it can even be difficult for a Swiss person to move from one canton to another. Similarly, the Netherlands scores 7.46, while a number of Asian Americans who have studied there told me that it was quite intolerant. Perhaps my samples are biased, since, for example, opinions on these kinds of matters can differ quite a lot between middle sized cities and metropolises, and of course metropolises have a whole lot more people.
Also, I find it rather strange that a number of African countries with a recent history of ethnic conflict are apparently open to immigrants.
At the end of the day, however, what is more significant than the results of an opinion poll are actual immigration laws and procedures. It is hard, for example, to become a Swiss or Japanese citizen, while not so hard (as far as I understand) to become a German citizen (so long as you are willing to give up other citizenships).
How do you think Germany should handle its demographic problems? In other words, what could induce Germans to reproduce? (This is an honest question. I’m not trying to pick a fight.)
That’s citizenship. Once you get residence permit, and you’re not living on the dole, you can move wherever you like. Citizenship could indeed be tricky in some locales.
Maybe according to 100 year old textbooks. It’s 2017, so no, it’s not difficult at all. Except of course if a French Swiss is planning to move to a German speaking canton, there could be linguistic difficulties. In a German canton, they will in practice use Swiss German, which is largely unintelligible for High German speakers, but they will switch to High German once they realize you’re a dumb foreigner who won’t understand their Mundart (dialect). But still you have to speak at least High German. If you move to an Italian canton, you’ll have to speak Italian. They will help, they will probably speak at least some High German (and often English, too), but still.
These linguistic problems have nothing to do with acceptance of foreigners or people from other cantons.
I guess reducing real estate prices relative to incomes might help. People would like to make children into their own homes, preferably large homes. Reducing or preferably reversing immigration would be a good first step in that direction, I think.
Another thing is making people proud of who they are. Not flooding them with propaganda about how terrible their ancestors have always been, how “problematic” any pride on their pride might be, etc.
There could be other incentives, of course, but these two would be important, in my opinion.
Yes, by immigration I mean becoming a citizen. Having lived in a handful of countries as a non-citizen, I can say that there are significant disadvantages to that, especially if your children have no right to citizenship in that country, even being born there. In my experience, in fact, a country that employs skilled foreign workers without giving them a chance of settling long-term is making a killing.
With regard to different cantons, I didn’t mean it is difficult to move from one to another, but that I’ve heard of people having problems sorting out social responsibilities related to tax and military service. I may have misunderstood, however, and cannot remember exact details. So do you think the survey is accurate? Do you think that Switzerland is generally accepting of immigrants who do not intend to become citizens but who simply want to work in the country?
Patriarchy
Can somebody explain how Rwanda made it to number three in that list ???
My guess would be that this is because of the different associations/meaning of the question for Japanese and Europeans.
Japanese acceptance of immigration involves accepting some Koreans and a handful of white westerners.
For Eastern Europeans, the idea of migration is millions of Muslims, like in their western neighbours.
Does anyone have any idea on Rwanda being so far up, specifically?
Difficult question, but one thing is clear to me: Spending billions on an ultimately futile attempt to turn illiterate goat-herders from Afghanistan or Arabs and Africans into productive model citizens is not a solution. In fact it will make everything much, much worse. And for that wasted money you could easily give 100 000 Euro to every well-educated German woman having a child, or lower Germany’s absurdly high taxes.
Switzerland has a lot of people of foreign origin (more than 20%), e.g. people from the former Yugoslavia; while the Swiss are sometimes quite xenophobic (not least against Germans), many will be familiar with that kind of immigrants and be ok with it.
“Immigrants” is really pretty useless as a category for such a survey, since it can mean very different things.
They have a strong, trusted, pseudo-authoritarian government that accepts refugees from nearby countries and is clearly capable of handling them thus far and a history in which many of them or their relatives were refugees in other countries themselves. Those would be my ideas. I do wonder how much “it depends” for the Rwandans themselves. Accepting Tutsis/Hutus from nearby countries may also be more natural than accepting… the sort of people who won’t be running away to Rwanda anyhow.
Yes, and in that regard it should be noted that Germany has very low rates of homeownership, and rental prices are becoming ever more extreme in metropolitan areas (due to all manner of eco-regulation; and of course also because of the “refugee” influx).
Anatoly,
Isn’t there a procedural issue in the study affecting scores? Assuming that numbers of recent immigrants in many countries were polled (recall that open immigration to the United States started circa 1965), the immigrants would, I think, be disposed to be friendly toward immigration and skew the results. The numbers for those countries without a recent demographic history of immigration such as Hungary would not be subject to that effect.
https://www.history.com/topics/us-immigration-since-1965
In short, immigrants voting their interests in their replies do not necessarily mean that the native ethnic population necessarily sees things the same way.
There’s also the fact that the Swiss people have expressed their opposition to even European immigration in several referenda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_immigration_referendum,_February_2014
You will NOT need to speak Italian if you move to one of the few predominantly Italian-speaking cantons (which are only 2-3 of the 26 cantons anyway).
Just about everyone in all of Switzerland speaks fluent German and French, with younger people (and not-so-young people, by now) very often speaking decent English.
In predominantly German-speaking cantons, kids learn German from the beginning and French from a fairly young age, like nine. The converse is true, I’m told, in French cantons. Stimmt das, in Ihrer Erfahrung? (Is that true, in your experience?) Please excuse my rusty German skills….
“Sweden really seems to be the most thoroughly brainwashed 1st world country ever…”
Well, with this mentality, Sweden probably won’t STAY a 1st world country for too much longer (historically speaking).
It’s not. Except, perhaps, for bilingual cantons, like Valais. They do study at school, and they are likely to be sent to a canton with different language for the military service, but still, typically, I don’ think they speak the language.
@The Big Red Scary: Germany could offer financial incentives for its citizens for every second and third child that they have.
Also, paying for IVF for infertile couples can help.
In addition to this, it might benefit Germany to study what Israel does in regards to this. Based on data which Anatoly Karlin has posted several months ago, it looks like Israeli fertility is eugenic up to families with three children; thus, it isn’t only dumb Israelis who are reproducing a lot.
@reiner Tor @German_reader: You both appear to be thinking of what Steve Sailer has previously called affordable family formation. Making land prices in Germany cheaper by reducing immigration might very well help in regards to this. However, Germany already appears to be relatively overpopulated to begin with; thus, Germany might need a period of population decline before its population can reach an equilibrium.
@Anatoly Karlin: It’s interesting to see that some of the lower IQ countries have high immigration acceptance.
Indeed, do you think that it could be possible for these countries (well, the stable ones among these countries) to take in large numbers of Third World refugees? Basically, I’m curious about this considering that there is only so many low IQ refugees and low IQ immigrants that the West is able to accept without the West itself turning into a bunch of Third World countries.
Indeed. Why not send refugees to a place such as Ivory Coast, or Kenya. Have humane altruistic Western governments pay, say 50% to the refugees what they would have paid had the refugees settled in the West. Refugees will be safe and live well with that kind of money in those kinds of places, and countries such as Kenya or Ivory Coast will have more money being spent in them (good for local producers, sellers, etc.). The West will save a lot in the long run. Everyone wins.
But why would the “refugees” want to go there?
You know, it’s a misconception to think the “refugees” landing in Europe are mostly people in fear for their lives, fleeing persecution or the horrors of a warzone. No, many of them, quite possibly a majority, aren’t in any immediate danger. They just want a nicer life than is possible in their crappy home countries. And since the dumb lemmings in high-IQ-yet-bizarrely-naive-and-gullible countries like Germany and Sweden are willing to tolerate them as parasites leeching off a welfare system to which they haven’t contributed (and never will), and since those countries’ elites have sacralized foreigners and actively invite them to come, why not go there? Plus, for Muslims it’s a great chance to spread their faith, with the prospect of making the infidels submit in a few decades time; and for Africans its payback-time for all the real and alleged sins of the white man against Africa.
The current crisis isn’t just some unavoidable force of nature (even if there are genuine issues like the consequences of climate change that need to be confronted). Europe could easily close its borders if there was the political will to do so. But there isn’t, because Europe’s elites have adopted a suicidal cult of human rights and antiracism as their ideology, and because too many European voters are in agreement with this or are too cowardly to draw the necessary consequences.
@AP: To be honest, I was also thinking of Latin America as a possible destination for large numbers of low IQ refugees and low IQ immigrants. After all, Latin America has much better policies than Africa has in regards to things such as gay rights.
Also, though, I agree with you that this might end up being a win-win situation for everyone involved.
@German_reader: Life in Latin America is nevertheless better than life in many Third World countries. Similarly, some African countries–such as Ethiopia–appear to be in better shape than some other ones–such as Eritrea and southern Somalia.
Basically, my point here is this–even for economic migrants, there are non-Western countries where they could move to in order to improve their lives. Plus, moving to these countries–such as Brazil and Argentina–would be less harmful to these countries in comparison to the West due to the lower IQ differences between the Third World and these countries (in comparison to the higher IQ differences between the Third World and the West; for the record, IQ helps determine national economic growth and prosperity).
As for Europe, the pro-multiculturalism folks should advocate the importation of high IQ people from outside of Europe–especially from East Asia, where there is an extremely massive number of high IQ people. Indeed, the pro-multiculturalism folks in Europe would benefit in learning from countries such as Canada and Austria; after all, unlike Europe, Canada and Australia are managing to achieve multiculturalism without poverty and terrorism.
Yeah I suggested this sort of scheme here:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/immigration-and-effective-altruism/
Senegal and Bangladesh, at any rate, are even more acceptive of immigration than Germany, so that’s nice.
Great minds think alike? 🙂
Bangladesh is overcrowded already but Tanzania isn’t too much. A bunch of Syrians in that country would make for a more interesting and better place.
Also, I honestly wonder if the pro-multiculturalism folks in Europe are doing a disservice to the European cause (a cause which, for the record, I myself support) by importing so many low IQ immigrants and low IQ refugees. After all, if Afro-Muslims become a very significant percentage of the population in Western Europe, this could cause Eastern European countries–whom by that point in time will have probably become much wealthier and thus more attractive for low IQ Third Worlders to settle in–to withdraw from the European Union and perhaps even seek to improve ties with Russia (since their own populations would be in decline for decades by that point in time and thus they might want a strong ally in Russia).
Honestly, if Europeans want a strong, more unified Europe, they should avoid pissing off Eastern Europeans with things such as massive low IQ immigration!
@Anatoly Karlin: The gay, atheist, and perhaps feminist ones might need to settle somewhere more welcoming, though–specifically in Latin America.
@AP: Here’s a world map of gay rights by country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory#/media/File:World_laws_pertaining_to_homosexual_relationships_and_expression.svg
Thus, it would be better for the gay, atheist, and perhaps feminist Third Worlders to move to Latin America. Plus, Latin America is much wealthier than countries such as Tanzania are.
I doubt there are many gay feminists among Syrian refugees. And frankly those types probably wouldn’t cause much problems in western Europe, they would actually assimilate.
Lots of Syrians settling in Tanzania’s coastal areas such as Zanzibar could recreate the African and Arab vibrancy of that region prior to Euro colonialism.
“After all, if Afro-Muslims become a very significant percentage of the population in Western Europe, this could cause Eastern European countries–whom by that point in time will have probably become much wealthier and thus more attractive for low IQ Third Worlders to settle in–to withdraw from the European Union and perhaps even seek to improve ties with Russia (since their own populations would be in decline for decades by that point in time and thus they might want a strong ally in Russia).”
I’ve been predicting this for a while, but I think it’s more likely that Eastern European countries will seek trade relations & ties with China, not Russia. (With Russia as well, but to a lesser extent than China). China has a bigger economy than Russia in terms of total GDP, and is a better market for Eastern European products.
@AP: Yeah, those types probably wouldn’t be much trouble in the West–which in turn is why I am more willing to support allowing them to immigrate to the West. However, if the West will already be filled to the max with refugees, then Latin America might very well be a good destination for them.
As for your point about recreating the African and Arab vibrancy of eastern Tanzania, I agree that this would be a good thing and a welcome development. Still, it would take a while for Tanzania to even reach the living standards of areas such as Indonesia and Latin America; thus, Third Worlders who want a rapid improvement in their standard of living should have the opportunity to immigrate either there or to similarly well-off countries such as Mexico.
Basically, I’m just trying to figure out an arrangement that would significantly benefit aspiring Third World immigrants without hurting the recipient countries very much.
Correct. Not only China, but also the USA. Plus, anti-Russian Eastern Euros will experience happy schadenfreude if China manages to dominate Russia.
Sending the Syrian refugees there with 50% of the welfare income they would get if they had settled in Germany, for perhaps 10 years or so (which would still be fewer years than if they stayed in Germany) would provide plenty of seed money to grow the regional economy in places like Tanzania, or Mozambique..
There are plenty of Senegelase and Bangladeshis among “refugees” in Europe.
I’m unconvinced that it’s a solution to pay these countries to take in genuine refugees from somewhere else. Right now they aren’t even cooperative in taking back their own citizens.
@Hector_St_Clare: Aren’t China and Russia cooperating a lot these days, though? If so, Eastern European countries could pursue closer ties with both Russia and China–which will certainly benefit them considering that their Chinese ties will help prevent them from being totally dominated by Russia (as was previously the case between 1945 and 1989).
Also, off-topic, but I’m curious about this–why exactly have Eastern European total fertility rates failed to recover to what they were under Communist rule? I mean, Russia and Belarus have significantly increased their total fertility rates, but even their total fertility rates are below what they were under Communist rule; as for countries such as Poland, their total fertility rate is crazy low!
Basically, I’m wondering about this considering that, even without large numbers of low IQ immigrants, Eastern Europe is going to have its own serious problems with severe population decline. Indeed, what do you think that Eastern Europe can and should do to raise its total fertility rate?
@AP: I want to make one more point here–my suggestions in regards to alternative immigration locations were geared towards low IQ immigration from the Third World. Meanwhile, I don’t think that it would make sense to prevent high IQ Third Worlders (of whom there are much less) from immigrating to the West.
Basically, I get that brain drains would severely hurt Third World countries–especially ones with a small population who don’t have many high IQ people to begin with (as opposed to countries such as Pakistan, where something like 30 million people could have IQs in the high 90s or above). However, what I am concerned about is that, if some Western countries will restrict higher IQ Third World immigration, these aspiring immigrants won’t immigrate to other Third World countries but will instead immigrate to other Western countries–such as Canada and Australia–which won’t have such immigration restrictions. Thus, any attempts by Western countries to restrict high IQ Third World immigration will likely only benefit other Western countries.
Also, No, I don’t view this as being cognitive colonialism considering that such immigration would be completely voluntary.
@AP: Good point; however, those countries would also need to have competent leaderships. After all, if a Syrian wants to set up a business in Tanzania or Mozambique but constantly needs to bribe corrupt officials to prevent his business from being shut down, then his business might not end up being very profitable. Indeed, this appears to be what is happening in Ukraine right now (but without the Syrian part).
I do agree with you that Third World countries with competent leaderships could significant benefit from Syrian and other Third World immigrants combined with Western money, though.
You don’t say. Here in Chile we are getting “enriched” by massive amounts of Haitians (and that on top of Dominicans, Peruvians and others), in fact, AFAIK the current levels of immigration are absolutely unseen in the history of the country.
See here, for instance: http://www.biobiochile.cl/noticias/nacional/chile/2017/08/02/a-julio-de-2017-inmigracion-haitiana-a-chile-supero-la-registrada-en-2016.shtml
All of this is happening with little opposition from any political faction, media or the population itself. In fact, practically everybody prefers to virtue signal by saying stupid garbage like “they are doing the jobs chileans won’t do”, “they are so cheerful”, “they add so much to our culture”, “the economy, in order to expand needs a growing population”, “they face so much racism and hardship, we need to do more to help them”.
That’s why I don’t believe that Chile almost appears “based” according the result of that poll, even in Sweden, the epitome of the cucked country, there is some formal opposition.
What bothers me the most (in fact probably more than the disaster itself) is the amounts of doublespeak necessary to believe that what is happening is good. For example a typical political speech here will usually contain phrases like:
“We need to train our population in order to perform more complex tasks which will lead to higher productivity and a more diversified economy” (if the lack of qualifications and training in the workforce is already a problem wont bringing in even more menial workers who are only able to work sweeping the streets, as street vendors, with a shovel at construction sites, etc., further dilute the existing skills among the population and put as further down the hole?)
-“Our most pressing problems is the appalling income inequality” (If unskilled workers are constitute most of the countries low income workers, wouldn’t an increase of the supply of labor further depress their wages and income? Also, if inequality is so high and the wages of unskilled workers so low, wouldn’t that mean that there is already a disproportionate large supply of unskilled workers and therefore it is impossible that there is any sort of “shortage”.)
And it goes on and on. Even intelligent people make this type of arguments and almost never someone with any sort of relevance tries to challenge them, and the few times they do they are already apologizing before they begin.
PS: I know that probably the points I made are known to practically everybody here, and it’s a bit outside the topic of the thread, but the situation is so depressing that I needed to vent somewhere.
Partially this has to do with masses of younger people moving to the Western EU while still being “officially” at home. They are counted as being home while not actually being home or bearing children at home, artificially lowering the official fertility rate. Fertility would be still be low if not for this factor, but it does makes a small difference. TFR of Poles in the UK, for example, is 2.13 which is high by European standards and above replacement level.
The thing with poor fertility in homogeneous places like Poland or Japan is that it isn’t much of a risk for the country – so perhaps in 50 years Poland (or Japan) will have the population it had in 1970. It will still be Poland, 99% Polish (or Japanese). It’s not like some outsiders are swamping the declining native population and its not like these places were underpopulated in 1970.
@jnc: Out of curiosity–how much of a problem are the Haitians, Peruvians, Dominicans, et cetera in Chile?
I mean, I suspect that the Haitians will have higher crime rates and lower IQs even with the completion of the Flynn Effect, but I’m honestly unsure that this would also be true for Peruvians, Dominicans, et cetera.
@AP: This is certainly very interesting; however, would it be enough to fully explain this gap? After all, the gap between U.K. Poles and Polish Poles is in the range of 0.8 children per woman!
Also, your explanation doesn’t apply for Russia and Belarus considering that those two countries are located outside of the E.U.; indeed, Russia and Belarus both had 2.0 children per woman in 1989 but only 1.7 (for Belarus) and 1.8 (for Russia) in 2016. Indeed, what explains the discrepancy for those two countries?
Also, it’s true that Poland and Japan don’t have to worry about outsiders swamping their native population. However, that’s not the only issue; after all, a smaller economy means less power and influence in your neighborhood and worldwide. For instance, do you think that the U.S. would have become a global superpower had its population stabilized at 50 or 60 million? Of course not! Rather, it would have as much power and influence as countries such as Britain and France have.
In addition to this, it is true that Poland and Japan weren’t underpopulated in 1970. Indeed, in Japan’s case, it might even benefit it to experience a population decline. However, in the long(er)-run, severe population decline simply isn’t sustainable. For instance, if Poland’s population would halve every 100 years, this is what we would get:
2017: 40 million
2117: 20 million
2217: 10 million
2317: 5 million
2417: 2.5 million
2517: 1.25 million
2617: 612,500
2717: 306,250
2817: 153,125
2917: 76,563
3017: 38,282
Hopefully I didn’t make any mistakes here. However, my point here should be sufficiently clear–while Poland can sustain some population losses, it will probably become underpopulated in two or three centuries if current trends continue. Meanwhile, it will truly become a wasteland around half a millennium (five centuries) from now if current trends continue.
Basically, my point here is that Poland has a couple of centuries to spare in regards to population decline, but then needs to get its total fertility rate back to replacement level or face underpopulation. Plus, this is not to mention the fact that Poland’s regional and global influence will significantly decline even if its population only shrinks by two or four times.
Also, if you want to put things into historical perspective, I would like to point out that Poland’s projected population decline up to the early 22nd century would demographically be as bad, if not worse, than the Holocaust was for the Ashkenazi Jewish community (specifically, with a loss of around 40% of their total population).
Indeed, I would have certainly wished for the Ashkenazi Jewish community to be twice as large today as it actually is; likewise, I don’t want other ethnic groups experiencing a severe decline in their numbers (especially if their country isn’t overpopulated).
Plus, if you want to look at this from an HBD perspective, less high IQ people means less geniuses, which very likely means less technological innovation, less inventions, less discoveries, et cetera. Indeed, I certainly don’t want that!
You mean the demographic problem of having zero population growth or a slight decline. Do you thing population shuld always increase forever?
Every source I’ve seen puts the German TFR around 1.5, well below replacement. If this doesn’t change, there will be significant decline and significant ageing. Sustained technological progress may allow the country to maintain its standard of living. I suppose if there are enough robots paying into the pension system, retired Germans can continue to spend their Urlaub in the Canary Islands. But in the long-run the TFR will have to come up to replacement if the country is not going to collapse. The same goes for most European countries, including Russia. At least in the latter case, though, the polls show that people would like to have enough children to maintain the population, and I suspect that another twenty years of modest economic growth and stability will lead to a replacement level TFR.
If you are asking what is my own preferred future, for most countries I’d like to see stable population levels until there is sufficient technological advance to sustain a larger population at a modest level of comfort without threatening the long-term stability of the eco-system. There are a few countries– including at least Canada, Russia, and the United States– which could gracefully manage a lengthy period of population growth followed by stabilization. But I think the current credit-fueled lifestyle of middle class North Americans is outrageous, not sustainable, and ultimately unsatisfying, while the post-war modest comfort of Western Europe (free basic health care, good transportation, affordable education, 80 m^2 of clean, bright living space for a small family) is a not unreasonable goal for many countries in the next hundred years, and even if it is unreasonable and unsustainable, there doesn’t seem to be anyway to convince people to live more modestly right now. In the very long-run, even well-managed resources are going to become scarce and there is going to have to be a change of lifestyle for a whole lot of people. My hope for the very long-run is some variation on the typical scifi scenario, in which we terraform not Mars but Earth itself, and that we manage to do so before another great extinction.
Anatoly is much more knowledgeable than I about this and has been through it all many times. I just wanted to see what the German readers think could be a solution to their own local problem.
As I said, it doesn’t fully explain the gap. But this phenomenon eliminates much of the difference between the fertility rate of Poland and that of Belarus and Russia.
Youth unemployment, easy birth control, and increasing materialist values (which are lower in Poland than in the Germany) explain this, I think.
As Karlin has pointed out somewhere, population loss would eventually stop and then reverse when people genetically inclined not to produce children would be removed from the breeding population and those genetically inclined to have children would remain and become a greater % of the population. I may be mistaken, but this turning point may have already been reached with the ethnic French, the first European population to experience native population birth rate decline, in the 19th century. I doubt Poland’s population would shrink below 25 million (its population in the early 1950s) before rebounding.
Its regional neighbors are in the same boat, more or less. Even worse, because its western neighbor is experiencing loss plus replacement. That will keep them quite preoccupied. So so not much loss in regional influence. Global influence? It’s true of the entire First World. There may one day be 10 times rather 5 times as many sub-Saharans, relative to first worlders, as today but I’m not sure what this will do for global influence unless the former swamp the latter through mass migration.
Hungarians has been having below replacement fertility since 1958 (except for three years 1975-77), its population is declining since 1980, and I think there are signs of higher fertility among segments of the educated population.
1) first thing i’d say is in the context of increasing tech i think a slight population decline is optimal (i think the industrial revolution increased population higher than is now needed) – as long as Japan for example maintains it’s hardline anti-immigration stance they should be very well set to benefit from increasing tech over time.
2) the 50% decline in sperm count over the last 40 years says we’re being poisoned by something in the environment/diet – figuring that out ought to be a priority
3) feminism: if say 20% of women are career > kids and 80% are kids > career then the culture should reflect that – currently it’s dominated by the 20% telling the 80% to be like them (which suits big business so they get all the media support)
4) the biggest factor imo is affordable family formation
– ability to support family on single wage at least when kids young
– housing costs proportional to income
both of which have been destroyed as a consequence of mass immigration and offshoring
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/04/12/soaring-house-prices-reduce-number-babies-born-england/
conclusion:
– negative immigration
– on-shoring
– slight population decline
– increased tech
– dial back feminism
– solve environmental fertility issues
populism = security + affordable family formation
Lol. You guys are adorable.
Argue with these guys:
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1779/20132561
Funny that Rwanda made it to third place in the nice-to-immigrant sweepstakes, considering the country was the scene of one of the worst genocides in the past one hundred years.
: Understood about the gap between Polish and Belarusian/Russian fertility.
Also, I get the point in your second sentence here.
As for your point about the breeders, I agree with this. However, I am also unsure as to how long it would take for these effects to be strongly felt; after all, please keep in mind that some breeders–such as the Old Order Amish in the U.S.–can probably only sustain their high birth rates as long as they are a tiny minority:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/01/the-inevitable-rise-of-amish-machines/
“The culture that is the Old Order Amish exists only within the context of the current United States of America, where they are a trivial minority.”
I don’t know who the high fertility Poles and Japanese are, but I wonder if a similar effect will occur with them (specifically declining birth rates) once they become a larger and larger percentage of their countries’ total population.
As for France, Afro-Muslims might give France an extra 0.1 or 0.2 points for its total fertility rate; however, in any case, Yes, France certainly has a comparatively high TFR for a Western country. Indeed, let’s see if France’s TFR will rebound after the Great Recession and then continue to increase.
If you want a better example of a country where breeders are an increasing percentage of the total population, though, you can go take a look at Israel–where the Jewish TFR increased by about half a child over the last 20 years!
Also, in regards to Poland and France (but not Japan), it is worth noting that their fertility patterns appear to be strongly dysgenic (especially for Poland):
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/nor-breeding-their-best/
Thus, let us hope that the breeders in these countries will be willing to do things such as embryo selection for intelligence and CRISPR editing. Indeed, doing this in sufficiently large numbers should solve the dysgenics problem in these countries.
As for your final point, I would like to point out that some countries in Poland’s neighborhood, such as Czechia, appear to have stronger demographics than Poland; in turn, this is going to help them in the long(er)-run at Poland’s expense:
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/d/dc/Demographic_balance%2C_1_January_2015_%E2%80%93_1_January_2080_%28thousands%29_PF15.png
Also, in regards to global influence, please look at how China is increasing its global influence nowadays; indeed, it doesn’t need to flood the Third World with ethnic Chinese–rather, it simply needs to increase its economic penetration of the Third World.
Meanwhile, while the low IQs of India and Sub-Saharan Africa will prevent them from acquiring as much global influence as China (unless they select and edit their embryos for intelligence and thus solve their low IQ problem, that is), even these areas can become relatively influential worldwide due to their sheer numbers if they will undergo the full Flynn Effect. For instance, if India will have a GDP per capita of $40,000 and a total population of 1.7 billion, it will have slightly more global influence than a U.S. which will have a GDP per capita of $120,000 and a total population of 500 million.
@Anatoly Karlin: I think that the theory itself is solid–though it might take longer to pan out due to the factors that Razib Khan mentioned (specifically breeders’ lifestyles becoming less sustainable as they become an ever-larger percentage of the total population).
Also, though, if we are able to use embryo selection and gene editing to make this baby boom eugenic rather than dysgenic, society could certainly strongly benefit from this due to the increasing number of geniuses who will be born.
From the first paragraph of the introduction:
The increasing intergenerational correlation suggests that cultural or genetic inheritance has become an increasingly significant determinant of fertility. However, the rapidness of the diffusion of low fertility during the fertility transition precludes the possibility that genes and culture inherited from parents are the sole determinants of fertility. Thus, cultural information acquired from non-parents must also affect fertility.
From the abstract:
We show that intergenerational fertility correlations will result in an increase in fertility over time. However, present low-fertility levels may persist if the rapid introduction of new cultural lifestyles continues into the future.
It seems clear that genes cannot be the dominating factor in the rapid diffusion of low fertility, unless there was some freak situation in which a few generations of fertile people were forced into below average fertility by some unknown mechanism. And in general one should be rather suspicious of “culture inherited from parents”. So far as we can tell, culture is gathered from one’s peers, not one’s parents. So “cultural information acquired from non-parents” is, I suspect, the dominating factor.
Is there any evidence that the culture of highly developed countries is becoming more friendly to fertility? We are not out of the woods yet.
1) What are you trying to optimize? I don’t find North America or Europe over-crowded. I don’t know much about Asia.
2) The decrease in sperm count is concerning. But is there any evidence that it affects fertility? The article I read about that (maybe linked to be Anatoly at some point) suggested there was none at this time.
3) Yes, this is an issue. Especially among otherwise intelligent people, both men and women. In my sample of highly intelligent people on either side of the pond, I would say that the problem is even more acute in North America than Europe. I know this is at odds with the general statistics, but I haven’t seen statistics for highly intelligent people.
4) About affordable family formation. I don’t know what this looks like from Fishtown, but people in Belmont are just damned spoiled and have really strange ideas about what it takes to raise a happy family. Build bunk beds and let the kids share a bedroom. And so what if you are still renting? The kids couldn’t care less.
I’m all for social policies that make family life more financially secure. But it is not clear that it is enough. Something really has to change in terms of social norms.
Japan and South Korea can afford to be welcoming to migrants because they don’t let many into their countries. They haven’t seen the downside and few places mind a trickle of migrants. It is when the spigot is turned on full blast that people start getting upset for the most part. Last time I checked, Japan had only brought in 27 Muslim migrants. 2 gang raped a Japanese woman so they are in jail. Recently Japan announced it was putting all Muslims on 24/7 blanket surveillance. Easier to do that when you aren’t flooded with them.
Japan is also changing their immigration system to bring in key qualified people the government thinks they need. Good luck with that. Almost all jobs usually labeled professional require a “native born” Japanese speaker. In other words, they only want Japanese.
Population declines should be viewed as a good thing in the age of robots. If robots have even half the impact on jobs that is now predicted, developed societies will need less not more people. All these lower IQ people who are flooding developed nations at the behest of the elite will be the ones most significantly impacted because jobs they are qualified for will be among the first automated. The end result will be even more permanently dependent on the remaining workers and many of those dependents already hate the majority.
Of course, to be a doctor or a lawyer you need to speak the local language fluently. But high level engineering and scientific work does not require fluency. I don’t know what kind of professionals the Japanese are looking for, but if they are looking for even more people working in AI or robotics, it shouldn’t matter. I know a number of European scientists who work long-term in Japan, and at least one who has become a citizen (after marrying a Japanese woman).
Actually, I would hope that robots would make having children less expensive in terms of time spent keeping house for them. If I had a robotic chef (http://www.moley.com/), and even better a robotic maid, then my wife and I might be more willing to have another few kids. Usually I play with the kids while my wife does the cooking (comparative advantage), but my wife can sometimes get disgruntled about that and I can feel a bit guilty. After all, I married her because she is intelligent and interesting to spend time with, not because she can cook. At the very least, even if you don’t have more kids, you could spend more time doing fun things with the ones that you do have.
Hey, I’m not arguing.
As one Bulgakov’s character said: ‘to each according to his faith’. Some are genetically determined to believe in genetic determinism, while others are socially conditioned to believe that social being determines consciousness. Fine with me; it takes all kinds…
Fortunately, this is what people say, not what the governments they elect do. As exemplified by Japan and Switzerland.
tribal biomass
Source for that 2.13 TFR number? Also, do you know the breakdown of the fathers?
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/parentscountryofbirthenglandandwales/2015#most-common-countries-of-birth-for-foreign-born-mothers-and-fathers
According to that, many more mothers than fathers who are Polish. IIRC, the gender breakdown is quite even. This implies a large section of Polish women basically breaking away from the community.
Agreed entirely with this comment. We live in an overpopulated world and moderate/gradual population decline isn’t a bad thing. The important thing for me is that Poland remain Polish, not that it continues to have 38 million people (or more).