As commenter Reykur recently pointed out – citing the work of the blogger denalt, there is a rather curious phenomenon occurring in a few ethnic Russian regions, where rural fertility has exploded in the past decade.
There are precisely four of these regions – Arkhangelsk, Komi, Kirov, and Karelia – and they are all located in the Russian North. (These patterns do NOT apply to neighboring & culturally close Murmansk and Vologda).
As you can see from the above graph, there has been a rather strange divergence between rural fertility rates in those four Russian regions and Russia as a whole. Moreover, they even overtook rural fertility in DICh (Dagestan, Ingushetia, Chechnya) around 5 years ago.
Even for a rural locale, a fertility rate of 4-4.5 children per woman is probably almost unmatched in any other predominantly white society in the world today. And yes, just to confirm, those regions are predominantly ethnic Russian: Arkhangelsk – 94%; Komi – 62%; Kirov – 89%; Karelia – 79%.
denalt has termed this phenomenon the “Northern Renaissance”, and suggests that they are the long-sought Russian “breeders”:
In the search for the Russian Haredim we looked into the houses of priests, the villages of the Old Believers, and even the Kazakh steppes, we missed their actual emergence on the historical scene.
I wouldn’t make too much of these figures.
In particular, the urban fertility rates of these regions are actually even lower than for their region as a whole, so as a result Arkhangelsk current TFR (1.58) is barely different from Novgorod’s (1.56). Nonetheless, it is certainly something worth bearing in mind.
In another post, denalt looks at demographic trends in some specific villages of Arkhangelsk oblast. Quite a few of them are undergoing population increase, which is rather remarkable considering (1) the massive amount of Soviet boomers dying off in these areas and (2) massive emigration from these villages. One interesting pattern he notices is that the the growing villages tend to have a church (often either newly built, or restored from disuse since the early 1930s deChristianization campaign). While I don’t know if the Church or the population growth came first, there is clearly a correlation and this suggests that Russia’s church-building spree under Putin is a very good thing.
Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.
If you are new to my work, start here.
Do you know if there is a significant Old Believer or Soviet Catacomb Church presence in these regions? I seem to recall that both groups were centred there in order to avoid government interference. If not, are these regions more traditional/conservative in general?
Would be interesting to have some population pyramids of these populations to see what is going on.
I wouldn’t overestimate the importance on these numbers. The rural population in these (and other) areas in Russia is relatively small. It’s like if you produced one bicycle last year and three this year, your production grew 200%, but it still won’t make any difference.
BTW, a lot of churches were constructed or restored in Russian cities, but that did not affect birth rates. Besides, mosques, not churches, are built in Dagestan, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and the locals breed like rabbits.
Correlations are meaningless, any scientist knows that they don’t suggest cause-and-effect relationship. Say, if I see a red Honda on a highway every time I drive to work, it does not mean that it’s there because I drive to work, or that I drive to work because it is there.
I wonder what’s driving church construction considering rates of religious observance in Russia are very low. Is it mainly just babushkas? Or is there actually a sizable number of devout Christians among the younger generations? I’m certainly not opposed to building and renovating churches, but it seems somewhat hollow if you can’t get people to attend services and participate in the sacraments.
Is around 22% in those regions. Lower than Russia’s average of 27%, but not entirely insignificant. And the divergence from other regions needs to be explained.
There are many church-goers of all ages, but very few devout Christians. Pretty much like in the US. A lot of young people in Russia opt for marriage in church (which does not prevent subsequent divorce), most babies are baptized, etc.
I agree, this is an interesting quirk in need of explanation. But hardly a trend-setter.
Local Finnish ethnic groups are also white
http://s019.radikal.ru/i636/1212/46/dd9f264417d2.jpg
http://s017.radikal.ru/i438/1212/72/0d9202285d81.jpg
https://a.radikal.ru/a17/1908/a3/cef6d9b637bd.jpg
It’s quite simple. These select villages are Finno Ughuric and you will see the resurgence of Benis Empire
The older generations were raised by non-stop atheist propaganda from the Soviet state. Why would you expect them to be more religious than the younger generation?
The ROC is very focused on quality vs quantity. It’s not at all like the Catholic Church where any rando can walk into a church and ‘participate’ in the sacraments. This is an official policy of the ROC. (And yes, there are deliberate blocks placed for those who aren’t dedicated enough or lack motivation.)
Nevertheless, if you’ve ever been in a Russian Church at a religious holiday, you know that people there are packed like sardines. Even this reason is enough to build more churches.
The authorities flirt with the Orthodox Church, just as in the West the authorities flirt with different “minorities”. The same system is a small but cohesive group that votes for the “right” candidate, and as a reward parasites on public finances and has legislative privileges. However, there are signs that in Russia the state is losing enthusiasm for the Church.
“in Russia the state is losing enthusiasm for the Church.”
What makes you think so?
I don’t see any sign of that…
“mainly just babushkas?”
Whenever I see pictures of videos of church services in Russia, I see a normal mix of people.
True, that tends to be images of feast days: I don’t know what happens in ordinary Sunday services, but church attendance in Russia is quite remarkable when compared to other European countries.
In St. Petersburg, the authorities refused to transfer St. Isaac’s Cathedral to the Church , in Yekaterinburg, the govrement supported the population (who protested against the construction of the Cathedral in the city)
Typical photo
http://lyskovskaya-eparhya.ru/wp-content/gallery/arhangelskoe-vsen/33.jpg
mainly just babushkas
News on topic (Rural Karelia)
http://rk.karelia.ru/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Shkolniki.jpg
“The children of the family Gurkins to learn in the school of the village Chelninskoj, and live in the village Viadana. The school bus does not pick up the children, and the family has no personal transport. As a result, children have to walk to school through the forest. This way becomes especially dangerous in winter and autumn, when wolves often come to the village. Gurkins have 12 children, seven of them are in school”
Rebuiding, renovating old and building new churches is done not just to satisfy public demand, but as a message from the state.
That the Church is alive, important and relevant in this age.
Contrast to western and central Europe where churches are transformed into anything from bars to stores – reminiscent of Bolshevik repurposing.
I suspect Russians like the Serbs and other Balkanites are decadent and not truly religious even when baptised, married in church etc. But they know what they are doing and how they live is wrong, degenerate and are aware of it, instead of presenting it as good, meaningful and desired behaviour.
Which the globohomo prophets and true believers do.
I understand Anatoly doesn’t want to cover the Moscow protests – I see Russian celebrities took part as well.
Russian rap is even worse than the original, American one. These people should be gulaged.
Fundraising when?
But they are.
Share of firm believers (without doubts) among people born before 1938: 55,7%
Born in 1939—1946: 46,9%
1947—1967: 36,7%
1968—1981: 34,8%
1982—2000: 31,6%
http://socis.isras.ru/en/article/7095
This was true in Russia in general 20 years ago, and it probably remains true in the less religious North.
It is not true in modern day Bryansk (as I observed last year), and it would be even less true for the more religious Russian South.
I watched this documentay on my local PBS station last night. It tells the story of a small poor family in the Donbas that tries to live through the misery of the bombings of the war there. What makes the film especially poignant is that it doesn’t betray any specific political orientation of this family (A babushka and her two grandchilldren). They just want this stupid war to end. Kyivan Nazis and Muskovite Triunists need to get their act together and put an end to this tragedy. The new president in Ukraine seems game? The “breeding” efforts of both Russia and Ukraine are hampered in Donbas.
https://youtu.be/6dsnRsybtXM
In Russia, as in much of Eastern Europe, Orthodoxy is more about identity than any particular deep religious belief. OTOH, larping that goes on for too long can become the real thing.
Yes, I can’t even be bothered writing about those fags. But The Daily Stormer did: https://dailystormer.name/russia-braces-for-screeching-liberal-shill-protests-in-moscow/
Some says cossacks and old believers have highest fertility rate in russia.
My folk explanation: with all the freezing cold there, there’s not much to do during winter but stay inside and procreate. My theory will appear true if most births are around september/october
Obviously not true because there are plenty of colder regions (e.g. in Siberia) that don’t display that pattern. Moreover, the pattern in that region only emerged in the past decade.
Hey, what’s up with our mutual buddy, AP? Is he on another vacation?…
Is it mainly just babushkas?
There’s a lot of middle-aged guys that look like ex-military or policemen. And young mothers with several noisy kids running around. Single men in their 20s and 30s seem to be the least common.
Taking at face value liberal’s self-count (they always have delusions of grandeur, or maybe just want to get more money from their masters) and Moscow population that exceeds 12 million (http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/moscow-population/), these “protests” predict expected support for the self-appointed liberals – low single digits. The rumor (started by aggrieved liberals) has it that Navalny stole the money they were promised for the previous “protest”. It would be an ultimate irony if Russian authorities jail Navalny for stealing the money State Department allocated to overthrowing them.
Fascinating. I had no idea those areas were so fertile. I wonder what the rationale is for the explosion in birth rate in the last decade.
If the rural population cranks up to 2.8 kids per woman on average, it will sustain the cities as younger people head there for work and university. Sadly I know more than a few urban St Petersburg women who seem to adore the ‘sex and the city’ lifestyle of being 35 and childless.
I can’t say typical, but when I have visited churches in Russia I saw quite a few 25+ year old women. In fact, I rather enjoy going for that reason (don’t tell my wife). Of course there are a ton of older women, but the biggest demographic missing seems to be younger men.
Having said that, I’ve only been to churches in a couple of oblasts, hardly a big sample.
I’m sorry, why do these numbers differ so radically from Wikipedia figures? I mean I know Wikipedia is liberal, but are they really cooking the books on Russian regional fertility rates?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_subjects_of_Russia_by_total_fertility_rate
There is indeed a correlation – in Siberia (in the Russian regions) the birth rate is higher than in the warmer parts of the country.
https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/przysiecki/69982468/21795/21795_900.png
In the post talking about rural fertility, in Wikipedia – about the overall level of fertility
Rural life in the Russian North https://aquatek-filips.livejournal.com/853782.html
https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/15482/67700761.1f5/0_fc3ef_fe51536f_orig.jpg
https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/15557/67700761.1f5/0_fc3f1_ea51fcad_orig.jpg
doorbell
https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/15480/67700761.1f5/0_fc3f2_a8de685e_orig.jpg
https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/15577/67700761.1f5/0_fc3f3_d00994fa_orig.jpg
https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/15523/67700761.1f5/0_fc3f4_6ce30723_orig.jpg
https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/17865/67700761.1f5/0_fc3f7_b1072181_orig.jpg
https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/15533/67700761.1f5/0_fc3f6_4aa3c76f_orig.jpg
https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/17846/67700761.1f5/0_fc3f8_68f67f2a_orig.jpg
https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/16177/67700761.1f5/0_fc3f9_ae0ca00a_orig.jpg
https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/15574/67700761.1f5/0_fc3fb_8631d148_orig.jpg
https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/15581/67700761.1f5/0_fc3fc_729fd63e_orig.jpg
https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/15548/67700761.1f5/0_fc3fe_17ac5597_orig.jpg
https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/16107/67700761.1f5/0_fc402_2ac8c92f_orig.jpg
Children return home from school
https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/16193/67700761.1f5/0_fc403_4614bf8b_orig.jpg
https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/15550/67700761.1f5/0_fc406_f9f1375c_orig.jpg
This is how Emil i Lönneberga lived 100 years ago. In my opinion in these places over time from the rural population remains only the religious sects, all others will leave for the city. Market-oriented agriculture in these places is meaningless because of the climate
Any sources about IQ of the high breeding Russian rural areas?
(cannot be big, everyone knows the most intelligent people choose to not reproduce)
https://twitter.com/alu_ky/status/1160346180217425924
Check this guy, this is another fine specimen for your collection of twitter freaks 😉
Shucks, I always knew Elon Musk was a dumb low-IQ fraudster.
The Amish have a TFR of 6-7: https://medium.com/migration-issues/how-long-until-were-all-amish-268e3d0de87
Amish fertility also tracks the business cycle, so their high fertility isn’t the result of uncontrolled Congoid copulation.
People make much of the Amish aversion to technology, but the Amish do not actually shun all technology. Typically the Amish (many varieties as they’re Protestants) prohibit electronic communications within the home itself (a telephone booth outside of the home for emergency calls is generally okay) and powered transportation (powered machinery is okay) in order to prevent settlements from being distant from one another. The Amish will take mass transit for intercity travel and can be seen on planes, trains, etc.
In other words many of the features of Amish culture which are conducive to high fertility, and many other desirable social outcomes, could be replicated.
Taking marriage seriously, match making, viewing reproduction as a God-given commandment and blessing, tight-knit communities, religious devotion, assistance to young families, intergenerational and extended family support, etc.
It is good that those traditions still survive, since one day they may be useful to solidify a society that doesn’t consist of subhumans
You know better then most how raw of a deal we Serbs got in the 20th Century, Russians aswell, it will take many years to fix all of that
I just wish we introduced some pro-natalist policies like Hungary, God knows we’re gonna need them
Going by prevalence of blond hair and blue eyes, Karelia is probably the most phenotypically Nordic of all Russia’s federal subjects. Arkhangelsk is not far behind, but Komi and Kirov less so, and Murmansk and Nenetsia in the far north not at all.
https://external-preview.redd.it/yOBpR_ymp_ypIAJyRscZRXf5uBWvG5wIA31G45-vV7w.jpg?auto=webp&s=b068cb1210d1072382c24985586625b2354203bd
https://unsafeharbour.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/maps-europelighteyes.jpg
It’s always nice to see big, blond families, whether among the Amish in Ohio or the Russians in Karelia. Russia has the world’s last large ‘Blond Breeding Region’ not yet inundated by the Third World in its northwest, though the borders are not coterminous with the Northwestern Federal District.
Blonds in Scandinavia, North Germany, Holland, the British Isles, North America and Australasia are being outbred in their own countries by swarthy invaders. Only in the Russian Northwest (and to a lesser extent the Baltic states) are the recessive blond-haired and blue-eyed genes safe from an imminent extinction event if the invasion of the West continues apace.
I would define the Blond Breeding Region as most of the Northwestern FD, including St Petersburg and Kaliningrad, but not swarthier Murmansk, Nenetsia and Komi where the brunet Arctic-types seemingly predominate over the blond Baltic-types. I’d also include the 3 oblasts that form the “roof” of the Central FD just north of Moscow: Tver, Yaroslavl and Kostroma.
Moscow acts as a buffer state, absorbing so much of the migration from the south and east and helping keep the Blond Breeding Region more-or-less “pure” and perhaps one day independent. To the 15 million mostly blond and blue-eyed people in this region you could add the Baltics and even Finland, the least pozzed of the Scandinavian countries.
Then you’d have a Greater Blondistan of 30 million people, free from both Mosque-cow and the Eurabian Union and with one of the world’s greatest (and blondest) cities, St Petersburg, at its heart. Blond self-determination now!
Church attendance is lower now across the country, compared to the 1990s – however, number of church construction increases.
This suggests there is no relation between the two, and it’s more like Soviet kind of overproduction which is occurring, although it benefits the construction industry.
But what happens when they destroy the oldest building in a city.
https://i.imgur.com/zcePLRj.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/66IAZ9a.jpg
Demolish the history.
https://i.imgur.com/U4CNI5h.jpg
And plan to replace the 18th century church they demolished, with 1990s style architecture? (And using modern construction methods).
https://i.imgur.com/XDhaNvi.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/oRvNtgv.jpg
Perhaps for something which is easier to drive a limousine through?
https://i.imgur.com/Wq15O9P.jpg
Well, Nordic phenotype is not only blonde hair but also a certain shape of the face. As far as I know the most Nordic are the Udora Komi and Russians of certain areas of the Arkhangelsk region
Udora Komi quite blondes – by anthropolgie fenotypic indicators they are strikingly coincide with the Norwegians
http://i031.radikal.ru/1212/86/016b0659bc4b.jpg
http://s019.radikal.ru/i620/1212/ae/1a668a359fdd.jpg
In whole:
“the Nordic type features are clearly manifested in the Northern Karelians, in Pomors, in Mordvins-Erzi of lukoyanovsky district, in Russians living in the valley of the Vetluga river and the Shungen district of the Yaroslavl region. Studies produced in 1938-1940, showed that the Nordic element also prevails among the Russian Novgorod region and the area of Novgorod colonization on the Northern Dvina and Vahe (Holmogory, Shenkursk), and among the Komi of district Udora and Pechora district of Komi ASSR. ”
N. N. Cheboksarov. Anthropological composition of the modern German // scientific notes of Moscow state University, vol. 63, 1941
That concerns light hair – there are different maps, but in respect Russia all these maps clearly not accurate.
Coon map
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/26/Pigmentation_of_Hair_and_Eyes%2C_Coon_1939.png/1280px-Pigmentation_of_Hair_and_Eyes%2C_Coon_1939.png
Lundeman map
https://unsafeharbour.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/maps-europefair-berthildlundman.jpg
Belonging to an Orthodox Brotherhood is rather like joining a Masonic lodge in certain professions.
The locals were doing a pretty good job of it even before the conflict with that insane abortion rate.
Russia was having a rural population surge before the revolution too. I think it was a precondition for the revolution (not enough arable land to go around) as well as the reason Russia managed to survive. Has the Russian agricultural sector recovered from Soviet error.. I mean era?
I watch Russian news coverage, and I notice the camera always manages to find a young woman holding a baby. The story could be about a bike race, or flooding in Siberia, it doesn’t matter: happy baby and woman in the center shot. This must be deliberate, someone is coordinating this. This stands in stark contrast to foul American TV news, and fills me with hope that your country will continue to exist in a recognizable form. This is good, because in the absence of a country of my own, I’d chosen to emotionally invest in Russia, to have a ‘side’ to root for.
The Russian government is heavily invested lifting fertility. Presumably they run A/B testing on different “treatments” to apply to the population, to increase fertility. Who knows, maybe they’ve tried some new approach in this region? Or, more likely, it’s something that’s developed naturally. I’d say you’ve got to get anthropologists and other experts on the group up there to figure out what is causing this fertility increase.
The church is one of your most powerful demographic tools. Going to church is of course not random/exogenous, so we can’t go assuming that the fertility of highly religious types will fully transfer to more secular types, were the secular somehow ‘assigned’ to go to church, but I’d propose it will help. By increasing the status of the Church, you increase the probability of secular people attending somewhat regularly. When those secular people being going to church, they will be exposed to large Orthodox families, and the prospects of having an additional kid or two will be less daunting and seem more normal. Russia has such abysmally low church attendance, that I suspect there’s a lot of low hanging fruit here. I’d be curious to see if church attendance were higher in these northern regions. Also need to find an instrumental variable for church attendance to study effects on fertility.
Blond hair isn’t recessive, might want to learn some genetics before you start talking of “breeding”. Subhuman.
I know about the Amish ofc but they’re so specific that they don’t constitute much in the way of practical interest. We are not going to adopt Amish mores on any significant scale. Moreover, they have only survived as a small community safely cocooned within a strong, technophile, and liberal/tolerant polity.
The rural people of Arkhangelsk etc. are perhaps more interesting in that these people aren’t particularly religious (the Russian North is much less religious than the South), and that they have gone from sharing Russia’s general fertility trends to increasingly sharp divergence from them (upwards) in the past decade. Investigating what precisely happened there would appear to be pretty important…
The map is fake and gay. There is no sharp difference in population genetics in the Kola peninsula vs. Karelia.
Thanks, your Jewish Englishman perspective on the Russian Christian Church is very important to us.
(P.S. That was elephant-sized sarcasm, in case you missed it.)
Shows that the war there is even more costly in retarding birth rates than even abortion.
Both sides seem pleased as long a the wrong type of person is eliminated. But who will be there at the end, to pick up the pieces? Were you moved by the simplicity of the message of the film?
Who is “us” – you are not from Russia and don’t know basic words of the language, and your general comments are unusually strange even for this site.
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Writing generally.
Karlin argues “church-building spree under Putin is a very good thing”, because of its relation to fertility rates.
Church construction has been very large, while church attendance is now lower than the 1990s. So although there might be evidence to connect religiosity to fertility rates, there doesn’t appear to be any mechanism where it be can connected church construction to religiosity (even as a correlation, let alone as causation).
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Denalt says there is a connection between village without a church having a falling population. But here there is a mixing of cause and effect in multiple different ways, and most of the population decrease between villages has nothing to do with fertility rates, but with internal migration because the village has an unacceptable standard of life.
Hungary has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world.
Hungary are very good at economic policy (and currently have a booming economy).
But their “pro-natalist policy” is specifically a symptom of a country with unusually low-fertility rates, not of a country with normal replacement birthrates (not just in Hungary, but everywhere).
Map of countries with “pro-natalist” policy, will be of the most low fertility countries in the world.
Yep, it’s always a minority who are willing to see everything go up in flames to further their agenda. What percentage of the region would you say identify as ethnic Russians?
Take a wild guess. You can do it, even with the monstrous Jewish self-centeredness.
How would you know? You don’t live in Russia and you aren’t part of the language milieu. Russian is a second language to you, so why do you think you’re qualified to judge? Part and parcel of the classic anglo propensity to think they can out-native even the natives, maybe?
Wikipedia states that roughly 58% are Ukrainian, the rest Russian, various Caucasian and many other ethnicities. At one time, and for many years, the Donbas was to serve as a model region for world communism. It was unusually Russified even for Ukraine. Those from the villages still know or completely understand Ukrainian. I personally knew a fellow from Zakarpattya who somehow got dragged into living and working into the mines in his youth. He actually liked living there…but he was quite the character. Another woman that I know, in her 80’s was born there and speaks fluent Ukrainian, and Russian very poorly (an exception).
It seems like it would be the most economically important region of Ukraine, I did business with a steel manufacturer in Mariupol; however, it had been demographically moribund for a while. Ukraine’s impoverished west has healthy demographics, though I suppose many of them have moved to Poland.
All true, Dmitry, but that’s not itself a criticism of Hungary, is it?
Of course low-TFR countries are in more need of efforts to boost fertility rates, particularly if they are already a small population (whether in absolute terms or relative to potentially hostile neighbors), if their population is increasing drastically in average age, and if they are not already badly overcrowded.
This description seems to fit all my countries of ancestry, and yours — as well as our more kindred or relatively compatible peoples: Europeans (meant to include “British” I.e. English, Irish, Scottish, and welsh for this purpose) and Russians, broadly construed, whether in Europe or Russia or anywhere else.
It’s a life or death matter, and any necessary measure should be undertaken to boost fertility of one’s own people, excepting people with serious developmental disabilities (including mental retardation) or serious congenital (heritable) physical handicaps.
It’s in all of our interests to see Hungarians, Russians, and predominantly-European peoples everywhere regain their confidence and pride, their sense of purpose and identity, their driving concern for the future of their own families and extended families (nations), their belief in something greater than themselves that unites them (yes, a belief in God and the soul or spirit) — all of which, taken together, tends to boost their fertility rates.
If governments are able to provide financial incentives to induce their own core people to have more babies, and have them earlier in life, generally they should — subject to the overcrowding concern mentioned above. The overcrowding concern does not apply much to western countries (or if it does, does so due in large part to recent massive immigration of alien peoples and their subsequent production of offspring).
If there were large government financial incentives for births in the USA without, say, limiting the incentive to net federal income-taxpayers, the result would be even more undesirable African and Mexicans/“Latino” births above all.
In the RF, would the result be an increase in nonRussian and especially nonRussian Muslim births? Not exactly what russia needs, IMHO.
Well, before 2014 it was. Today?…And how many billions to rebuld the place now, even if a real ceasefire were ever negotiated?…Without Russian support, this war would have ended before it even started. But, I guess people’s Russian language rights were so severly infirnged upon, that only a war of these proportions was needed to make things right again? 🙁
Below replacement fertility in itself is not a danger. (Like in an earthquake, the ground moving does not kill you, but the poorly constructed buildings collapsing can kill you).
Danger for the country of below replacement fertility: its effect on public finances, increase of dependency ratio, and government response of boosting low quality immigration from third world countries.
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So, if country like Norway, with very good finances, in theory could be fine with below replacement fertility, if they also don’t respond with boosting immigration.
They could be fine with a worse dependency ratio, due to their extra money in their Sovereign Wealth Fund – and with less people, their standards of living will increase in other ways (for example, they would have better teacher to student ratios, more hospital spaces, less traffic jams, etc).
Religious people can have higher fertility rates (especially in certain sects). For example, Mormons are creating population boom in Utah.
But in Russia, this is building churches, while number of people use the church is lower than in the 1990s.
In such a case, building a church could still be cool, if it improves urban environment of the city in some way. However, if they destroy the oldest building in the city? Then it is not very cool.
If we want to talk about construction of temples in general. Europe has thousands of years of investment in building thousands of world’s most beautiful churches. Yet Europe is more secular than Ethiopia, Philippines or Colombia, where their church buildings will be very inadequate.
So, from the view of “an advocate for religion” – building more churches is not related to how much religion there will be in the population.
This is church in Ethiopia, one of world’s most religious countries.
https://i.imgur.com/XugkWCV.jpg
And here churches in Czech Republic, which is the world’s most secular nation according to some surveys.
https://i.imgur.com/qjq0ZGQ.jpg
Investment in churches, doesn’t result in a religious population, and vice-versa (lack of investment in churches, didn’t result in more secular Ethiopia).
Czech Republic is possibly the world’s most secular country, but it benefits from the beautiful architecture of the investment in building churches of earlier epochs.
Fertility rate of at least 2 children per women, is very desirable and solves a lot of current problems (dependency ratio, government arguments for allowing immigration, etc).
However, government policy does not seem to have an impact on fertility rates, in countries with the below replacement fertility rate.
For example, Governor of Perm territory said his region’s experience of the effect of pro-natalist policies, is that they reduce poverty, but do not stimulate fertility.
This is the map I was thinking of. For whatever reason, Belarus has made more progress since the high abortion rates of the late Soviet era than Ukraine or Russia.
https://languagesoftheworld.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/abortion_rates_Europe_map.gif
In this map, lowest abortion rate countries are Poland, Portugal, Austria, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Bosnia/Kosovo and Ireland (both Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland).
Aside from Bosnia/Kosovo, it seems like all the lowest abortion rate countries have a majority of the population with Catholic heritage (so Catholicism is probably the main cause here that differentiates them).
Well-reasoned and well-written comment as usual, sir, and I defer to you on church construction and its relation to actual religiosity.
I’d add that the target replacement rate shouldn’t be 2.0, but more like 2.2, to account for possible untimely deaths and to be on the safe side.
As for religion: other than massively taxpayer-subsidized Africans in the West, do we know of any population of meaningful size that has ever sustained above-replacement fertility rates for a long period of time without widespread traditional religious belief and identity of some kind? You weren’t alleging that, I know, I’m just asking.
Maybe. But with the exception of Poland, it seems that almost NOBODY of childbearing/conceiving age attends Mass or actually serious believes and follows much of anything taught by the RC Church in these countries.
And that has been true for several decades at least, no?
Even in once ueber-Catholic Ireland, which Rod Dreher and others have shown to be vehemently and increasingly anti-RC Church.
I hope so, but I’m not so sure.
Anything consistently below replacement rate fertility is, generally, not healthy demographics. Does western Ukraine have TFR 2.1 / 2.2 or above?
Merely declining and dying out more slowly than other european peoples (and Russians), is not success.
According to this, Uniates are behind only Bosnian and Polish Catholics in attendance
https://www.pewforum.org/2017/05/10/religious-belief-and-national-belonging-in-central-and-eastern-europe/pf-05-10-2017_ce-europe-00-19/
Oops, wrong link
https://www.pewforum.org/2017/05/10/religious-belief-and-national-belonging-in-central-and-eastern-europe/pf-05-10-2017_ce-europe-00-18/
Something interesting in America, even poorer and more religious races, are falling to below replacement rate fertility.
African Americans have fertility rate 1,89 by 2016. (And Hispanic American are rapidly falling to below replacement).
–
https://i.imgur.com/78t9EtZ.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/nLq9K1V.png
https://ifstudies.org/blog/baby-bust-fertility-is-declining-the-most-among-minority-women
Well, religion is one of the main causes of higher fertility.
But even religious countries have falling fertility rates, generally. Fastest falls in fertility rates are happening now in Muslim countries, although from a very high initial level.
As far as I know (can be mistaken) this map gives false information as the number of abortions for Russia (probably Ukraine and Belarus as well) is significantly overstated.
In Russia, abortions include miscarriages and other cases that are not considered abortions in other countries (here link https://femunity.livejournal.com/121177.html ). On this comparison (Russia vs Poland etc, etc) false
Thanks for the info. To add to the data pile here’s a pretty detailed world map of blondness showing Leningrad Oblast as likely Russia’s blondest, and spreading outward from there. Though according to NN Cheboksarov, whom you quoted, many of these peoples ancestors probably originated in the Veliky Novgorod region.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/4m1c61/blonde_hair_distribution_in_the_world_4972x2517/
There’s real hope for the long-term survival of blonds in Russia, but in America the blond-dominant region is but a small and shrinking piece of territory centered on Fargo, North Dakota. Sad.
Hm. Pro-choice organizations often say that one out of three women in the US will have an abortion by the time she reaches menopause. Sometimes I wonder, though, whether these “abortions” also include “spontaneous abortions,” or miscarriages. Some language, like Italian, for instance, don’t have a separate word for “abortion” and “miscarriage.”
A purely biological note. Bacteria breed faster than yeast. Yeast breed faster than mammalian cells in culture. Mammalian cells in culture breed faster than flies. Flies breed faster than mice. Mice breed faster than cats. Cats breed faster than monkeys. Monkeys breed faster than apes (including humans). I guess anyone would get the drift at this point.
If they’re in northern Russia, couldn’t their IQs be elevated relative to southern Russians in comparable situations (specifically those living in rural areas) due to the greater Finnic admixture in northern Russia?
Finnish ethnic groups of Russia have the same IQ as Russian (most likely thets also true for living in Russia “Finnish” Finns). North Russians initially have a different origin than southern Russians, to talk about the influence of “admixture” in this case is strange
They do it to keep busy on those long winter nights.
Wrong!
Wrong.
That’s exactly what I said: correlation DOES NOT PROVE cause-and-effect relationship. Correlations can be observed when there is causation and where is none.
To be fair you stated correlations are “meaningless”, which is not necessarily true. Correlations often suggest a causal relationship and merit further investigation.
Meaningless in a sense that they prove nothing. But you are right, correlations are worth investigating. Key point is, investigating with an open mind, not with a preconceived “theory”.