23 May 2012

What is the connection between religion and birth rate? Hans Rosling Answers

Hans Rosling brings data alive once again in his latest released TED talk. This time, he organizes countries by religion and compares the average number of children against the per capita income for each country.

Rosling opines that babies decrease per women when:
  1. Children survive
  2. Many children are not needed for work
  3. Women get education and join the labor force
  4. Family planning is acceptable
Those look like conclusions that will excite the girl-up crowd. The trouble is that knowing this information is helpful, but the order of accomplishment is a bit hazier.

Not surprising, the data shows that religion has little to do with the number of babies in the world. The section that I found most illuminating is his explanation of how the population can grow to 10 billion over the next few decades with a stagnant global birth rate.

Anyways, watch it for yourself:



Correction: I changed "determined" to "opines" to more accurately describe the four indicators that Rosling says contributes to the decline of birth rates.

9 comments:

Amanda Makulec said...

I'd actually love a copy of the Gapminder map of majority world religions...Nice find!

Tommy said...

But what's the impact of religion on points 3 and 4? [Sidenote: Didn't watch the video]

Tom Murphy said...

Not discussed in any manner that is sufficient. The talk just tracks data trends based on national birth averages vs per capita income. Countries are then coded by majority religion. For the most part, it is an even spread with countries that are say Christian with high birthrates and low income and others on the opposite end.

Robert Hagedorn said...

Google First Scandal.

Rosling Bubbles said...

Entertaining. He has four opinions but he doesn't prove any of them.
What a shame that he did not show that high mortality is associated with
high population growth. The association lends itself nicely to Rosling
bubbles ...

Robert Swope said...

I like Rosling's stuff but he doesn't seem be really establishing any causality in this one.  A correlation certainly, and a reasonable one.   The problem is more precision is needed when it comes time to allocate resources.  Also, the boxes exercise and "peak child" line make it assume population will top out, which I'm not so sure of.  

Anyways, you got to this talk first and a cite you here:  http://www.robertswope.com/home/2012/5/24/issues-with-presenting-and-understanding-data.htmlGood post.   Best,RJS

Robert Swope said...

http://www.robertswope.com/home/2012/5/24/issues-with-presenting-and-understanding-data.html

This is the actual link.  Got cut off at the end.

Roseling Bubbles said...

 Tom, you have written that Rosling "determined" four conditions. I think he "opined" them.

Tom Murphy said...

Noted and changed. Thank you.

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