Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-hgkh8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-18T04:31:07.530Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

WEALTH, INTELLIGENCE, POLITICS AND GLOBAL FERTILITY DIFFERENTIALS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2009

GERHARD MEISENBERG
Affiliation:
Ross University, Dominica

Summary

Demographic trends in today's world are dominated by large fertility differentials between nations, with ‘less developed’ nations having higher fertility than the more advanced nations. The present study investigates whether these fertility differences are related primarily to indicators of economic development, the intellectual level of the population, or political modernity in the form of liberal democracy. Results obtained with multiple regression, path models and latent variable models are compared. Both log-transformed GDP and measures of intelligence independently reduce fertility across all methods, whereas the effects of liberal democracy are weak and inconsistent. At present rates of fertility and mortality and in the absence of changes within countries, the average IQ of the young world population would decline by 1.34 points per decade and the average per capita income would decline by 0.79% per year.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abma, J. C. & Martinez, G. M. (2006) Childlessness among older women in the United States: trends and profiles. Journal of Marriage and the Family 68, 10451056.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boonstra, O. (1998) The impact of education on the demographic life course: the family reproduction process of literates and illiterates in the Netherlands at the end of the nineteenth century. History of the Family 3, 303313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, G. (2007) A Farewell to Alms. A Brief Economic History of the World. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, G. & Hamilton, G. (2006) Survival of the richest: the Malthusian mechanism in pre-industrial England. Journal of Economic History 66, 707736.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colom, R., Flores-Mendoza, C. E. & Abad, F. J. (2006) Generational changes on the Draw-a-Man test: comparison of Brazilian urban and rural children tested in 1930, 2002 and 2004. Journal of Biosocial Science 35, 3339.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daley, T. C., Whaley, S. E., Sigman, M. D., Espinosa, M. P. & Neumann, C. (2003) IQ on the rise. The Flynn effect in rural Kenyan children. Psychological Science 14, 215219.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dickens, W. T. & Flynn, J. R. (2001) Heritability estimates versus large environmental effects: the IQ paradox resolved. Psychological Review 108, 346369.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Doepke, M. (2004) Accounting for fertility decline during the transition to growth. Journal of Economic Growth 9, 347383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flynn, J. R. (1984) The mean IQ of Americans: massive gains 1932–1978. Psychological Bulletin 95, 2951.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flynn, J. R. (1987) Massive IQ gains in 14 nations: what IQ tests really measure. Psychological Bulletin 101, 171191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frejka, T. & Westoff, C. F. (2008) Religion, religiousness and fertility in the US and in Europe. European Journal of Population 24, 531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedlander, D., Schellekens, J. & Ben-Moshe, E. (1991) The transition from high to low marital fertility: cultural or socioeconomic determinants? Economic Development and Cultural Change 39, 331351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hadeishi, H. (2003) Economic well-being and fertility in France: Nuits, 1744–1792. Journal of Economic History 63, 489505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haines, M. R. (1992) Occupation and social class during fertility decline: historical perspectives. In Gillis, J. R., Tilly, L. A. & Levine, D. (eds) The European Experience of Declining Fertility 1850–1970. The Quiet Revolution. Blackwell Cambridge.Google Scholar
Heer, D. M. (1968) Economic development and the fertility transition. Daedalus 97, 447462.Google ScholarPubMed
Jablonski, N. G. & Chaplin, G. (2000) The evolution of human skin coloration. Journal of Human Evolution 39, 57106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jones, G. & Schneider, W. J. (2004) Intelligence, human capital, and economic growth: an extreme-bounds analysis. URL: http://www.siue.edu/∼garjone/JonesSchneApr.pdf.Google Scholar
Khaleefa, O., Abdelwahid, S. B., Abdulradi, F. & Lynn, R. (2008) The increase of intelligence in Sudan 1964–2006. Personality and Individual Differences 45, 412413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knodel, J., Havanon, N. & Pramualratana, A. (1984) Fertility transition in Thailand: a qualitative analysis. Population and Development Review 10, 297328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kost, J. & Forrest, J. D. (1995) Intention status of U.S. births in 1988: differences by mothers’ socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Family Planning Perspectives 27, 1117.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kreyenfeld, M. (2003) Crisis or adaptation – reconsidered: a comparison of East and West German fertility patterns in the first six years after the ‘Wende’. European Journal of Population 19, 303329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamson, H. D. (1935) Differential reproduction in China. Quarterly Review of Biology 10, 308321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, R. D. (1987) Population dynamics of humans and other animals. Demography 24, 443465.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leet, D. R. (1977) Interrelations of population density, urbanization, literacy, and fertility. Explorations in Economic History 14, 388401.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lesthaeghe, R. & Neels, K. (2002) From the first to the second demographic transition: an interpretation of the spatial continuity of demographic innovation in France, Belgium and Switzerland. European Journal of Population 18, 325360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loehlin, J. C., Lindzey, G. & Spuhler, J. N. (1975) Race Differences in Intelligence. W. H. Freeman & Co., San Francisco.Google Scholar
Lutz, W., Testa, M. R. & Penn, D. J. (2006) Population density is a key factor in declining human fertility. Population and Environment 28, 6981.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynn, R. (1996) Dysgenics. Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations. Praeger, Westport, CT.Google Scholar
Lynn, R. (2006) Race Differences in Intelligence. An Evolutionary Analysis. Washington Summit Books, Athens, GA.Google Scholar
Lynn, R. (2008) The Global Bell Curve. Race, IQ, and Inequality Worldwide. Washington Summit Publishers, Augusta, GA.Google Scholar
Lynn, R. & Harvey, J. (2008) The decline of the world's IQ. Intelligence 36, 112120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynn, R., Meisenberg, G., Mikk, J. & Williams, A. (2007) National IQs predict differences in scholastic achievement in 67 countries. Journal of Biosocial Science 39, 861874.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lynn, R. & van Court, M. (2004) New evidence of dysgenic fertility for intelligence in the United States. Intelligence 32, 193201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynn, R. & Vanhanen, T. (2001) National IQ and economic development: A study of eighty-one nations. Mankind Quarterly 41, 415435.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynn, R. & Vanhanen, T. (2002) IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Praeger Westport, CT.Google Scholar
Lynn, R. & Vanhanen, T. (2006) IQ and Global Inequality. Washington Summit Books, Athens, GA.Google Scholar
Maddison, A. (2007) Historical Statistics. URL: http://www.ggdc.net/Maddison/ (accessed September 2008).Google Scholar
Matthews, R. C. O., Feinstein, C. H. & Odling-Smee, J. C. (1982) British Economic Growth 1856–1973. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McPherson, G. R. & Weltzin, J. F. (2008) Implications of peak oil for industrialized societies. Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 28, 187191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meisenberg, G. (2003) IQ population genetics: it's not as simple as you think. Mankind Quarterly 44, 185209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meisenberg, G. (2004) Talent, character, and the dimensions of national culture. Mankind Quarterly 45, 123168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meisenberg, G. (2007) In God's Image. The Natural History of Intelligence and Ethics. Book Guild, Brighton.Google Scholar
Meisenberg, G. (2008) How universal is the negative correlation between education and fertility? Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies 33, 205227.Google Scholar
Meisenberg, G., Lawless, E., Lambert, E. & Newton, A. (2005) The Flynn effect in the Caribbean: generational change of cognitive test performance in Dominica. Mankind Quarterly 46, 2969.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neiss, M., Rowe, D. C. & Rodgers, J. L. (2002) Does education mediate the relationship between IQ and age of first birth? A behavioural genetic analysis. Journal of Biosocial Science 34, 259275.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parker, M. P. (2004) Chrestomathy: Annual Review of Undergraduate Research at the College of Charleston 3, 167181.Google Scholar
Raven, J. (2000) The Raven's Progressive Matrices: change and stability over culture and time. Cognitive Psychology 41, 148.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Raven, J., Raven, J. C. & Court, J. H. (1998) Raven Manual: Section 1. General Overview. Oxford Psychologists Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Retherford, R. D. & Sewell, W. H. (1988) Intelligence and family size reconsidered. Social Biology 35, 140.Google ScholarPubMed
Retherford, R. D. & Sewell, W. H. (1989) How intelligence affects fertility. Intelligence 13, 169185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rindermann, H. (2008a) Relevance of education and intelligence at the national level for the economic welfare of people. Intelligence 36, 127142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rindermann, H. (2008b) Relevance of education and intelligence for the political development of nations: democracy, rule of law and political liberty. Intelligence 36, 306322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodgers, J. L. & Wänström, L. (2007) Identification of a Flynn effect in the NLSY: moving from the center to the boundaries. Intelligence 35, 187196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sallume, X. & Notestein, F. W. (1932) Trends in the size of families completed prior to 1910 in various social classes. American Journal of Sociology 38, 398408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shayer, M., Ginsburg, D. & Coe, R. (2007) Thirty years on – a large anti-Flynn effect? The Piagetian test Volume & Heaviness norms 1975–2003. British Journal of Educational Psychology 77, 2541.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Soares, R. R. (2005) Mortality reductions, educational attainment, and fertility choice. American Economic Review 95, 580601.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sundet, J. M., Barlaug, D. G. & Torjussen, T. M. (2004) The end of the Flynn effect? A study of secular trends in mean intelligence test scores of Norwegian conscripts during half a century. Intelligence 32, 349362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teasdale, T. W. & Owen, D. R. (2008) Secular declines in cognitive test scores: a reversal of the Flynn effect. Intelligence 36, 121126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Templer, D. I. (2006) Temperature, skin color, per capita income, and IQ: an international perspective. Intelligence 34, 121139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuddenham, R. D. (1948) Soldier intelligence in World Wars I and II. American Psychologist 3, 5456.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Udry, J. R. (1978) Differential fertility by intelligence: the role of birth planning. Social Biology 25, 1014.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
United Nations (1987) Fertility Behaviour in the Context of Development. Evidence from the World Fertility Survey. United Nations, NY.Google Scholar
United Nations (2004a) Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations, 11th edition, Vol. 1. Gale, Detroit.Google Scholar
United Nations (2004b) Human Development Report. United Nations URL: http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR04_complete.pdf (accessed 15th October 2008).Google Scholar
United Nations (2005) Human Development Report. URL: United Nations http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR05_complete.pdf (accessed 10th October 2008).Google Scholar
United Nations (2007) Abortions Legally Induced, Urban and Rural. United Nations Statistics Division, Common Databasehttp://unstats.un.org/unsd/cdb/cdb_simple_data_extract.asp (accessed 28th November 2007).Google Scholar
van de Walle, F. (1980) Education and the demographic transition in Switzerland. Population and Development Review 6, 463472.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vining, D. R. (1995) On the possibility of the reemergence of a dysgenic trend with respect to intelligence in American fertility differentials: an update. Personality and Individual Differences 19, 259263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vinovskis, M. A. (1976) Socio-economic determinants of interstate fertility differentials in the United States in 1850 and 1860. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 6, 375396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weede, E. (2004) Does human capital strongly affect economic growth rates? Yes, but only if assessed properly. Comparative Sociology 3, 115134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weede, E. & Kämpf, S. (2002) The impact of intelligence and institutional improvements on economic growth. Kyklos 55, 361379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar