5 ms·

Who would kill children to save the planet?

1 points by yboris 5y ago

Bostonian 5y ago
I agree with the article. The differences between British and American English can be amusing. Quoting the article: "But now that they’ve gone, your attention will focus on the crisp packets and fag butts."
eesmith 5y ago
It's really not so simple as looking at GDP vs total fertility rate [TFR]. Education of women appears to be more important. Here's one relevant study, looking at different factors, "Human fertility in relation to education, economy, religion, contraception, and family planning programs" - https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-020-8331-7 https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s... > In two studies based on countries as units, TFR was more strongly related to education than to GDP per capita [19, 26]. TFR had little relation to the level and change of GDP per capita 1960–2010, but GDP changes tended to be increasingly positive for countries at lower TFR level [27]. Lower TFR may therefore favor economic development, rather than the other way around [28, 29]. ... > The broad analysis of six global regions shows associations of TFR with each of the five factors explored > TFR is strongly associated with education, contraceptive use, and religiosity (r2 = 0.89, 0.66 and 0.66, respectively). Figure 1 shows the r2 = 0.44 correlation to GDP -- GDP is far less important that increasing women's education (outside of Western Europe), improving access to contraception, and decreasing religiosity! This paper points out "the factors to which TFR is related are themselves related in interesting ways, especially female education, which is positively correlated with GDP per capita and negatively correlated with religiosity" and tries to account for that. This essay suggests that Hickel's claim "Past a certain point, the relationship between GDP and social outcomes breaks down or becomes irrelevant" is wrong. That paper I link to shows "Within [Western Europe], TFR and education were positively associated, in contrast to all other regions. ... TFR had little or no association with contraceptive prevalence (CPR) or GDP per capita." So the data I found agrees with Hickel, and highlights how this linked-to essay doesn't consider confounding factors.

1 points by yboris 5y ago

I agree with the article. The differences between British and American English can be amusing. Quoting the article: "But now that they’ve gone, your attention will focus on the crisp packets and fag butts."

eesmith 5y ago

It's really not so simple as looking at GDP vs total fertility rate [TFR]. Education of women appears to be more important. Here's one relevant study, looking at different factors, "Human fertility in relation to education, economy, religion, contraception, and family planning programs" - https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-020-8331-7 https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s... > In two studies based on countries as units, TFR was more strongly related to education than to GDP per capita [19, 26]. TFR had little relation to the level and change of GDP per capita 1960–2010, but GDP changes tended to be increasingly positive for countries at lower TFR level [27]. Lower TFR may therefore favor economic development, rather than the other way around [28, 29]. ... > The broad analysis of six global regions shows associations of TFR with each of the five factors explored > TFR is strongly associated with education, contraceptive use, and religiosity (r2 = 0.89, 0.66 and 0.66, respectively). Figure 1 shows the r2 = 0.44 correlation to GDP -- GDP is far less important that increasing women's education (outside of Western Europe), improving access to contraception, and decreasing religiosity! This paper points out "the factors to which TFR is related are themselves related in interesting ways, especially female education, which is positively correlated with GDP per capita and negatively correlated with religiosity" and tries to account for that. This essay suggests that Hickel's claim "Past a certain point, the relationship between GDP and social outcomes breaks down or becomes irrelevant" is wrong. That paper I link to shows "Within [Western Europe], TFR and education were positively associated, in contrast to all other regions. ... TFR had little or no association with contraceptive prevalence (CPR) or GDP per capita." So the data I found agrees with Hickel, and highlights how this linked-to essay doesn't consider confounding factors.