tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19949676.post114254320193054298..comments2024-03-24T20:13:39.387+00:00Comments on demography.matters.blog: More On US DemographicsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19949676.post-60202236063559492732008-04-28T16:31:00.000+00:002008-04-28T16:31:00.000+00:00Fertility could be going down because people are w...Fertility could be going down because people are waiting to have children or they can't afford them. Immigration seems to be a way to combat declining population.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19949676.post-1143531569493037772006-03-28T07:39:00.000+00:002006-03-28T07:39:00.000+00:00Differences in fertility between immigrants and th...Differences in fertility between immigrants and their source countries are an interesting topic.<BR/><BR/>For example, Mexico's TFR is now about 2.3 or 2.4, but Mexican-Americans are about .3 or .4 higher.<BR/><BR/>At a guess, I'd say it's a reflection of social and geographical differences between the migrants and the source population. If the migrants were disproportionately poor and/or rural,Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19949676.post-1143531012423537842006-03-28T07:30:00.000+00:002006-03-28T07:30:00.000+00:00Also, fertility is not as strongly correlated with...Also, fertility is not as strongly correlated with education or income levels in the US as in Europe. Religious and regional differentials are more important.<BR/><BR/>Oddly enough, you can also trace a definite difference in fertility between backers of the two political parties!<BR/><BR/>At a given income/educational level, Republicans will have about .4 of a child more, with the difference Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19949676.post-1143530503014243742006-03-28T07:21:00.000+00:002006-03-28T07:21:00.000+00:00Only about 30% of the increase in US TFR's since t...Only about 30% of the increase in US TFR's since the 1970's is due to immigration.<BR/><BR/>The rest is due to a sustained, if very gradual, increase in the fertility of the native-born.<BR/><BR/>Of course, in a country of 300,000,000 people and 3.5 million square miles, any generalization is dangerous.<BR/><BR/>But to generalize anyway, what's happened since the TFR bottomed out at around Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19949676.post-1142705842118510572006-03-18T18:17:00.000+00:002006-03-18T18:17:00.000+00:00I'm sorry if I'm going on a bit here Robert, but I...I'm sorry if I'm going on a bit here Robert, but I do think that all of this is really quite important. All this differentiation between completed cohort fertility and period TFRs is very remioniscent of an earlier debate in Europe, when Europe was still in denial. This distinction is now virtually impossible to defend here in Europe as the implications of sustaining TFRs below 2.1 for any lengthEdward Hughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10384039867580949531noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19949676.post-1142687705339403882006-03-18T13:15:00.000+00:002006-03-18T13:15:00.000+00:00"Now, a question that might be worth asking, but i..."Now, a question that might be worth asking, but is probably difficult to answer, is, do migrants have *more* children than they would have had if they had stayed in their country of birth?"<BR/><BR/>This is, of course, a very interesting question, and again gives an illustration of the difficulty of composite aggregate data.<BR/><BR/>Maybe there are two effects, and they work in opposite Edward Hughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10384039867580949531noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19949676.post-1142687231667955152006-03-18T13:07:00.000+00:002006-03-18T13:07:00.000+00:00When I talk about the US discourse here, I am refe...When I talk about the US discourse here, I am referring to the work of two well known theorists who I think have had a lot of impact on how the problem is seen inside the US. Richard Easterlin:<BR/><BR/>http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~easterl/<BR/><BR/>and Diane Macunovich<BR/><BR/>http://bulldog2.redlands.edu/dept/EconomicDept/macunovich/index.html<BR/><BR/>The whole emphasis of this tradition is on Edward Hughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10384039867580949531noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19949676.post-1142686724186581242006-03-18T12:58:00.000+00:002006-03-18T12:58:00.000+00:00"You don't believe that it is true, or you believe..."You don't believe that it is true, or you believe that it is true, but somehow irrelevent?"<BR/><BR/>Neither of these. I believe it is true, and I believe that it is not irrelevant. I simply believe that the situation is more complex. I believe we are everywhere using aggregate data, and that aggregate data is often very misleading. That is why I want to break it down. <BR/><BR/>Before I go Edward Hughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10384039867580949531noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19949676.post-1142684076448226242006-03-18T12:14:00.000+00:002006-03-18T12:14:00.000+00:00"The American boom generation that peaked in the l...<I><BR/>"The American boom generation that peaked in the late 1950s did succeed in replacing itself"<BR/><BR/>No, I don't buy this. This is a story that the US is telling itself because of the whole way people are reading this *inside* the US - you have a discourse problem - but it is missing the big picture.<BR/></I><BR/><BR/>You don't believe that it is true, or you believe that it is true, butAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19949676.post-1142675267621018292006-03-18T09:47:00.000+00:002006-03-18T09:47:00.000+00:00"Interestingly, the EU-10 countries had their baby..."Interestingly, the EU-10 countries had their baby boom in the 1950s, and were replacing themselves quite nicely until the social system collapsed around 1990"<BR/><BR/>I don't buy this connection, which again Robert is I think a reflection of the way this is all being debated in the US. It is very hard to tie this down to specific social security arrangements, the whole movement is of much Edward Hughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10384039867580949531noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19949676.post-1142674746950107352006-03-18T09:39:00.000+00:002006-03-18T09:39:00.000+00:00"And then, I might observe the following:"Nice try..."And then, I might observe the following:"<BR/><BR/>Nice try Robert, but I basically don't buy this story. First off there are three distinct fertility regimes in the US.<BR/><BR/>1/. The Afro-Americans<BR/><BR/>2/. The Latino migrants<BR/><BR/>3/. The rest (more or less)<BR/><BR/>It is possible to follow these patterns in the US in a way which it isn't elsewhere (unfortunately) becuse of the wayEdward Hughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10384039867580949531noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19949676.post-1142608740287181792006-03-17T15:19:00.000+00:002006-03-17T15:19:00.000+00:00My second exhibit is a graph of US population by a...<I>My second exhibit is a graph of US population by age structure. From this it is clear that something interesting happened between 25 and 30 years ago, since there is a distinct kink in the graphs.</I><BR/><BR/>I wouldn't look at the kink so much as the peaks for those born in the late 1950s, and then again in the late 1980s. And then, I would look at the age structure graphs for "old" and "Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com