Jessica Choi Assignment #3

Jessica Yan Tung Choi 

Source: CIA World Factbook

Nations with highest rate of Catholicism  

Country	Catholicism Rate (%)	Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (%)	Birth rate (per 1,000 persons per annum)	Total Fertility Rate (children born per woman)	Youth Dependency Ratio (%)	Infant Mortality rate (per 1,000 live births)
France	85	76.4	12.6	2.08	28.5	3.34
Mexico	82.7	70.9	18.61	2.25	43.7	16.26
Peru	81.3	68.9	18.85	2.25	44.4	20.85
Philippines	82.9	48.9	24.62	3.1	55.1	18.19
Austria	73.6	69.6	8.73	1.42	21.6	4.21
Chile	70	64.2	14.12	1.85	30.6	7.19

Nations with lowest rate of Catholicism

Country	Catholicism Rate (%)	Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (%)	Birth rate (per 1,000 persons per annum)	Total Fertility Rate (children born per woman)	Youth Dependency Ratio (%)	Infant Mortality rate (per 1,000 live births)
Jamaica	2.6	69	18.65	2.09	41.8	13.98
Japan	~2	54.3	8.23	1.39	21.1	2.17
Cambodia	1.3	50.5	24.88	2.72	48.9	52.7

Findings

From the 5 variables (total fertility rate, contraceptive prevalence rate, infant mortality rate, birth rate, youth dependency ration) used, I see no correlation between Catholic dense populations and higher birth rates.  First of all, the contraceptive prevalence rate for Nations with large Catholic population is relatively high.  Specifically, Mexico and France has a higher contraceptive prevalence rate than Japan, Jamaica, and Cambodia (Nations with small Catholic population.) This proves that the Catholic prohibition of artificial birth control has become an unpopular practice amongst many Catholics.

K-selection (capacity)	R-selection (rate)
Fewer offspring	More offspring
Longer time to reproduce	Lesser time to reproduce
More parental investment	Lesser parental investment
Stable environment	Unstable environment
Lower infant mortality rate	Higher infant mortality rate

 Source: Professor King Lecture Notes

From the r-selection theory:   

country having more offspring → shorter time to reproduce→ higher infant mortality rates and less parental investment. 

Similarly, Mexico, Philippines, Peru (Catholic dense populations,) Jamaica, and Cambodia (small Catholic populations,) have high fertility rates, high birth rates, high infant mortality rates, and high youth dependency ratios.  According to CIA World Factbook, “rates above two children indicate populations growing in size. Higher rates may also indicate difficulties for families, such as feeding and educating their children and for women to enter the labor force.” A high youth dependency ratio also indicates that a greater investment needs to be made in schooling and other services for children. 

From the K-selection theory:

country having fewer offspring→longer time to reproduce→lower infant mortality rates and greater parental investment. 

Austria, Chile (Catholic dense populations,) and Japan (small Catholic population) has low birth rates, low fertility rates, and low infant mortality and youth dependency ratio. All three of these countries have a total infant fertility rate of less than 2. This suggests that these populations are in a “stable environment and are growing older and decreasing in size.”(World Factbook) Furthermore, as the youth dependency ratios for these countries are relatively low, this suggests that people are having fewer children so that there will be better parental investment/resources for their offspring. 

The fact that there are nations with large and small Catholic populations in both K and R selection theories, shows that the assumption that large Catholic population=less birth control=high birth rate is false.

Conclusion

Religious beliefs and observing whether a nation has a high percentage of Catholicism is not an accurate measure to correlate with higher birth rates. Using more concrete variables such as observing the infant mortality rates, total fertility rates, and the r/K selection model, one will better understand the factors affecting birth rates between nations