Thursday, March 30, 2006

French birthrate   posted by Razib @ 3/30/2006 07:29:00 PM
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We've talked about the French birthrate before, so here is a story out on that topic. Note that France has Europe's second highest birthrate.

Ireland: 1.99
France: 1.90
Norway: 1.81
Sweden 1.75
UK: 1.74
Netherlands: 1.73
Germany: 1.37
Italy: 1.33
Spain: 1.32
Greece: 1.29

To obviate the questions of algebraically challenged readers (lovers of the qualitative query that some of you are),

1.9 = ((white French)/(total)) * fertility + ((non-white French)/(total)) * fertility

If you assume that 20% of French women who might have children are non-white (erring on the high side), and you assume that the white French fertility is 1.5, you'd get 3.5 for the non-whites. Just plug and chug possibilities. I don't know the French language literature but my minimal knowledge of Europeans informs me that it is far less strange for French women to have multiple children than it is for Italians (as a contrast), so I don't think the high fertility can be attributable purely to non-white residents.