Thursday
02Nov2006
Hey redneck, stick this in your pipe and smoke it
Thursday, November 2, 2006 at 6:00AM
Trawling political forums, as I occasionally do, I am often faced with rightwing Americans who tell me that Europe is dying and that America bucks the Western trend by having both an expanding economy and a growing population.
Well upon reading this week's Time magazine, I came across a section called America by the numbers (no link I’m afraid, it doesn’t seem to be online), which gives a breakdown of birth-rates by ethnicity, and for rabid rightwingers like the drongos I seem to attract, they make for pretty unsettling reading.
Births-per-woman aged 15-44
White 1.85
Black 2.02
Amer. Ind. 1.73
Asian 1.90
Hispanic 2.82
So adopting the standard replenishment rate of 2.1-births-per-woman, we can safely assume that only Hispanics are replenishing their population, not to mention being the driving force behind the growing population (how much of this growth is immigration from south of the boarder?).
So next time one of my rightwing interlocutors throws this in my face, I’ll highlight a few home truths. Also, if Europe really wants to tackle its population decline, maybe it ought to import more people from afar. Anyone got Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's number?
Well upon reading this week's Time magazine, I came across a section called America by the numbers (no link I’m afraid, it doesn’t seem to be online), which gives a breakdown of birth-rates by ethnicity, and for rabid rightwingers like the drongos I seem to attract, they make for pretty unsettling reading.
Births-per-woman aged 15-44
White 1.85
Black 2.02
Amer. Ind. 1.73
Asian 1.90
Hispanic 2.82
So adopting the standard replenishment rate of 2.1-births-per-woman, we can safely assume that only Hispanics are replenishing their population, not to mention being the driving force behind the growing population (how much of this growth is immigration from south of the boarder?).
So next time one of my rightwing interlocutors throws this in my face, I’ll highlight a few home truths. Also, if Europe really wants to tackle its population decline, maybe it ought to import more people from afar. Anyone got Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's number?
Reader Comments (1)
Well, Tyger, may be that percentage is essentially the consequence of the Catholic doctrine's influence in questions of natality. The less Catholic countries are, the lower the birth rate.