I think your comment does a really good job of illustrating the difficulty in determining which groups and circumstances are selecting on what traits, as the two examples of unusually strong selection on fertility that you bring up are the Amish and the French, which have been on opposite ends of fertility behavior. Itâs not impossible that both of these groups are selecting more strongly on fertility than everyone else, but it is somewhat counterintuitive.
I agree that the Amish are selecting on something, but that something isnât necessarily a preference to have more children. The paper you linked also lists âaffinity for work, perseverance, low status competition, respect for authority, conscientiousness, and community orientationâ as other characteristics that may be being selected for among the Amish. If the Amish are being selected for ~conformity and community orientation rather than desire to have more kids irrespective of circumstances, then if the circumstances change at the community level (for example, if it becomes more difficult to purchase farmland, as is already happening to the community in Lancaster County, or if the Amish stop being exempt from the requirement that children need to stay in school until they are 16, which some people are pushing for) then the Amish fertility rate could decline further than it already has.
The French case seems somewhat more compelling: because of contraception and norms around family sizes, the people who had larger families in France would be people who intrinsically valued larger families, and so selection would in the direction of higher fertility preferences more directly, rather than high fertility being a result of conforming to local norms. That being said, two centuries of selection in the direction of people who want kids more than average hasnât been enough to bring French fertility above replacement, merely to above average for Europe.
On the topic of comparing French and German fertility- so far as I can tell, Karlin isnât making any attempt to control for Muslim fertility as a component of the French total? There are probably some ultra-conservative French catholics bumping up the total, but insular French-Muslim communities by themselves could explain the French case in roughly the same way as the Amish.
Also, FWIW, the lower rates of Amish defection over time might not necessarily reflect genetic changes (although thatâs also possible.) The larger external secular society might just be getting more chaotic and repulsive over time.
Oh, good idea. Reverse image searching resulted in me finding the same version claiming that itâs 2007 data. So thatâs maybe partially reflecting differences in how people responded to the financial crisis in particular?
Decided to find some TFR data from Eurostat and recreate this map for some more recent years. The France-Germany gap has been decreasing in visual saliency: 2014 is still pretty visible but but 2019 is less so (though there is still some aggregate TFR difference between France and Germany). Data doesnât go far enough back for me to be able to check the original map but it doesnât seem particularly implausible.
I think your comment does a really good job of illustrating the difficulty in determining which groups and circumstances are selecting on what traits, as the two examples of unusually strong selection on fertility that you bring up are the Amish and the French, which have been on opposite ends of fertility behavior. Itâs not impossible that both of these groups are selecting more strongly on fertility than everyone else, but it is somewhat counterintuitive.
I agree that the Amish are selecting on something, but that something isnât necessarily a preference to have more children. The paper you linked also lists âaffinity for work, perseverance, low status competition, respect for authority, conscientiousness, and community orientationâ as other characteristics that may be being selected for among the Amish. If the Amish are being selected for ~conformity and community orientation rather than desire to have more kids irrespective of circumstances, then if the circumstances change at the community level (for example, if it becomes more difficult to purchase farmland, as is already happening to the community in Lancaster County, or if the Amish stop being exempt from the requirement that children need to stay in school until they are 16, which some people are pushing for) then the Amish fertility rate could decline further than it already has.
The French case seems somewhat more compelling: because of contraception and norms around family sizes, the people who had larger families in France would be people who intrinsically valued larger families, and so selection would in the direction of higher fertility preferences more directly, rather than high fertility being a result of conforming to local norms. That being said, two centuries of selection in the direction of people who want kids more than average hasnât been enough to bring French fertility above replacement, merely to above average for Europe.
Do you know which year the map from Breederâs Revenge that you linked is for? I donât see a year on it, but it shows more dĂ©partements at above replacement than the paper that Iâve found on Recent Demographic Developments in France, which has a map for 2015. Note that the country-wide TFR of 1.96 shown below has declined a bit since then, reaching 1.86 by 2019, and 1.83 in 2020 and that non-immigrant TFR is even further below replacement. While I think itâs plausible that TFR in France will start going up again in the near future, itâs also quite plausible that it wonât.
On the topic of comparing French and German fertility- so far as I can tell, Karlin isnât making any attempt to control for Muslim fertility as a component of the French total? There are probably some ultra-conservative French catholics bumping up the total, but insular French-Muslim communities by themselves could explain the French case in roughly the same way as the Amish.
Also, FWIW, the lower rates of Amish defection over time might not necessarily reflect genetic changes (although thatâs also possible.) The larger external secular society might just be getting more chaotic and repulsive over time.
I donât think Hanson has any terribly useful suggestions for solving the secular fertility crisis, to be frank. The founding myth of our present-day secular elites is of course the holy crusade against the Nazis, which means that any serious national discussion about raising birthrates (let alone ensuring eugenic fertility) will get crushed by Lebensborn comparisons and other thought-terminating clichĂ©s.
Not every country has a political myth about the fight against the Nazis. So one of them might eventually take up Hansonâs suggestions.
I did a reverse image search on it, and I found a map that seems to have the same data for France and Germany that was posted in early 2014.
Oh, good idea. Reverse image searching resulted in me finding the same version claiming that itâs 2007 data. So thatâs maybe partially reflecting differences in how people responded to the financial crisis in particular?
Decided to find some TFR data from Eurostat and recreate this map for some more recent years. The France-Germany gap has been decreasing in visual saliency: 2014 is still pretty visible but but 2019 is less so (though there is still some aggregate TFR difference between France and Germany). Data doesnât go far enough back for me to be able to check the original map but it doesnât seem particularly implausible.