Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveZ
The problem with analysis of numbers alone is that there are additional facts affecting the formula leading to the numbers.
Example: Do the numbers only reflect recorded births or infants at ___ months age?
Example: What is the infant mortality rate, and is it reflected in the umbers?
Example: Which nations have abortion-on-demand? Will that affect population renewal capacity?
Example: What is the immigration ratio (how many leave/how many come)?
I'm a fan of numbers, but only after I can understand what they are trying to represent, and ask myself what isn't part of the equation than can can affect their use.
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Steve, these are very reasonable questions and I will answer them as best I can.
1. Births per woman is just that. There is no included compensation for infant mortality or other adjustments.
2. As noted, infant mortality is not included in these numbers, but is reported seperately in the World Factbook. I'm feeling lazy tonight so I'll let you crunch those numbers.
3. I have no way to quantify how in different countries, abortion on demand, required abortion (very recently in China) and no abortions allowed for any reason have impacted these numbers. In any case these numbers are actual births.
4. Net migration numbers are also included in the CIA World Factbook and are factored into projected growth/shrinkage rates but not in the children born per woman figure. As you might expect, Mexico has a negative migration rate and the United States has a positive migration rate.
It should be noted that some countries including Japan, Russia, Germany and Italy are already experiencing negative growth rates.
My purpose in doing my spadework was to either validate or disprove the numbers being put forth in the video. They are valid.