Assignment #3

Warren Laufer (Admin)

Italy – 80% Roman Catholic

·      Birth Rate: 8.94 births per 1,000 Population

·      Literacy rate: 99%

·      Life expectancy at birth: 81.95 Years

·      Infant Mortality Rate: 3.33 Per 1,000 births

·      GDP Per capita: $30,600

·      Contraceptive prevalence rate: 62.7%

Spain – 94% Roman Catholic

·      Birth Rate: 10.14 births per 1,000 Population

·      Literacy rate: 97.7%

·      Life Expectancy at birth: 81.37

·      Infant Mortality Rate: 3.35 per 1,000 births

·      GDP per capita: $31,100

·      Contraceptive prevalence rate: 65.7%

Mexico – 82.7% Roman Catholic

·      Birth Rate: 18.61 births per 1,000 Population

·      Literacy rate: 93.5%

·      Life Expectancy at birth: 76.86

·      Infant Mortality Rate: 16.26 per 1,000 births

·      GDP per capita: $15,600

·      Contraceptive prevalence rate: 70.9%

Brazil – 73.6% Roman Catholic

·      Birth Rate: 14.97 births per 1,000 Population

·      Literacy rate: 90.4%

·      Life Expectancy at birth: 73.02

·      Infant Mortality Rate: 19.83 per 1,000 births

·      GDP per capita: $12,100

·      Contraceptive prevalence rate: 80.3%

France – 83-88% Roman Catholic

·      Birth Rate: 12.6 births per 1,000 Population

·      Literacy rate: 99%

·      Life Expectancy at birth: 81.56

·      Infant Mortality Rate: 3.34 per 1,000 births

·      GDP per capita: $39,771.84

·      Contraceptive prevalence rate: 76.4%

Argentina – 92% Roman Catholic

·      Birth Rate: 17.12 births per 1,000 Population

·      Literacy rate: 97.9%

·      Life Expectancy at birth: 77.32

·      Infant Mortality Rate: 10.24 per 1,000 births

·      GDP per capita: $18,400

·      Contraceptive prevalence rate: 78.9%

Outgroup

Japan  - <2% Roman Catholic

·      Birth Rate: 8.23 births per 1,000 Population

·      Literacy rate: 99%

·      Life Expectancy at birth: 84.19

·      Infant Mortality Rate: 2.17 per 1,000 births

·      GDP per capita: $36,900

·      Contraceptive prevalence rate: 54.3%

Russia - <2% Roman Catholic

·      Birth Rate: 11.21 births per 1,000 Population

·      Literacy rate: 99.7%

·      Life Expectancy at birth: 69.85

·      Infant Mortality Rate: 7.19  per 1,000 births

·      GDP per capita: $14,307

·      Contraceptive prevalence rate: 79.5%

Iran -  <1% Roman Catholic

·      Birth Rate: 18.4  births per 1,000 Population

·      Literacy rate: 85%

·      Life Expectancy at birth: 70.62

·      Infant Mortality Rate: 40.02 per 1,000 births

·      GDP per capita: $6,815.57

·      Contraceptive prevalence rate: 73.3%

Analysis:

As my countries containing large Roman Catholic populations, I looked at Italy, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, France, and Argentina. For the outgroup of countries with low populations of Roman Catholics, I looked at Japan, Russia, and Iran. For my data variables I chose Birth rate, Literacy rate (as a measure of education), life expectancy at birth and infant mortality rate (as measures of healthcare), GDP per capita (as a measure of wealth and lifestyle), and contraceptive prevalence rate.

            Even though contraception is banned by the Roman Catholic Church, there does not appear to be a correlation between being a Catholic nation and having low rates of contraception use. On the contrary, Brazil, a heavily Catholic nation has the highest rate of contraception use, and other Catholic countries have about the same rates as the non-Catholic countries I looked at.

            There were, however, some correlations that I saw in the data. First, countries with high Infant Mortality Rates also tended to have higher birth rates. This makes sense because if a mother is going to have the same number of children reach adulthood, she must have more babies since some of them will not live past infancy. Along with this correlation, the nations with the highest infant mortality rates had the lowest GDPs per capita. This shows that undeveloped countries tend to have higher infant mortality rates and worse healthcare. There did not seem to be large correlations between education (literacy rates) and contraception, although Iran had the lowest literacy rate and the highest infant mortality rate and the second lowest expected lifespan, suggesting that there might be a correlation between education and healthcare.

 Rebecca McNeil

Nations with high percentage of Catholic citizens:

1.     Spain

Birth Rate: 10.14 births/1,000 population

Percentage of Catholics: 94%

Infant mortality rate: 3.35 deaths/1,000 live births

Mother’s mean age at first birth: 29.3

Literacy rate: 97.7%

Life expectancy: 81.37 years

GDP per capita (PPP): $31,100

Contraceptive prevalence rate: 65.7%

2.     Mexico

Birth Rate: 18.61 births/1,000 population

Percentage of Catholics: 82.7%

Infant mortality rate: 16.26 deaths/1,000 live births

Mother’s mean age at first birth: 21.3

Literacy rate: 93.5%

Life expectancy: 76.86 years

GDP per capita (PPP): $15,600

Contraceptive prevalence rate: 70.9%

3.     Peru

Birth Rate: 18.85 births/1,000 population

Percentage of Catholics: 81.3%

Infant mortality rate: 20.85 deaths/1,000 live births

Mother’s mean age at first birth: 22.3

Literacy rate: 89.6%

Life expectancy: 72.98 years

GDP per capita (PPP): $10,900

Contraceptive prevalence rate: 68.9%

4.     Argentina

Birth Rate: 17.12 births/1,000 population

Percentage of Catholics: 92%

Infant mortality rate: 10.24 deaths/1,000 live births

Mother’s mean age at first birth: N/A

Literacy rate: 97.9%

Life expectancy: 77.32 years

GDP per capita (PPP): $18,400

Contraceptive prevalence rate: 78.9%

5.     Italy

Birth Rate: 8.94 births/1,000 population

Percentage of Catholics: 80% Christian (overwhelming majority is Roman Catholic)

Infant mortality rate: 3.33 deaths/1,000 live births

Mother’s mean age at first birth: 27.7

Literacy rate: 99%

Life expectancy: 81.95 years

GDP per capita (PPP): $30,600

Contraceptive prevalence rate: 62.7%

6.     Brazil

Birth Rate: 14.97 births/1,000 population

Percentage of Catholics: 73.6%

Infant mortality rate: 19.83 deaths/1,000 live births

Mother’s mean age at first birth: N/A

Literacy rate: 90.4%

Life expectancy: 73.02 years

GDP per capita (PPP): $12,100

Contraceptive prevalence rate: 80.3%

Outgroup: Nations with no evident religious or ideological restrictions on contraceptive use

1.     Australia

Birth Rate: 12.23 births/1,000 population

Percentage of Catholics: 25.8%

Infant mortality rate: 4.49 deaths/1,000 births

Mother’s mean age at first birth: 30.5

Literacy rate: 99%

Life expectancy: 81.98 years

GDP per capita (PPP): $43,300

Contraceptive prevalence rate: 72.3%

2.     Finland

Birth Rate: 10.36 births/1,000 population

Percentage of Catholics: 1.1% or less

Infant mortality rate: 3.38 deaths/1,000 live births

Mother’s mean age at first birth: 27.9

Literacy rate: 100%

Life expectancy: 79.55 years

GDP per capita (PPP): $37,000

Contraceptive prevalence rate: N/A

3.     Japan

Birth Rate: 8.23 births/1,000 population

Percentage of Catholics: 2% or less

Infant mortality rate: 2.17 deaths/1,000 live births

Mother’s mean age at first birth: 29.4

Literacy rate: 99%

Life expectancy: 84.19 years

GDP per capita (PPP): $36,900

Contraceptive prevalence rate: 54.3%

For the countries with large populations of Catholic citizens, I chose Spain, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Italy, and Brazil, while for the outgroup nations, I chose Australia, Finland, and Japan. I decided to examine each nation’s respective birth rates, infant mortality rates, mothers’ mean ages at first birth, literacy rates, life expectancies, GDPs per capita, and the contraceptive prevalence rates. As discussed briefly in class, it appears that a high percentage of Catholicism has little correlation with a high birth rate, as countries such as Spain and Italy have significantly lower birth rates than countries like Mexico, Peru, Brazil, and Argentina. While the Catholic religion explicitly bans use of birth control, it appears that this is not a sanction that is consistently followed among every majorly Catholic nation; rather, it appears that there are other factors at play.First and foremost, countries with higher infant mortality rates, such as Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, which had the greatest mean number of deaths per 1,000 live births (of the countries I surveyed), tended to have far higher birth rates than countries with lower infant mortality rates, religious makeup notwithstanding. That is, with countries such as Japan, Italy, Spain and Finland, which had the lowest birth rates as well as lowest infant mortality rates (of the countries I surveyed) having a majority Catholic population does not mean that the prohibition of contraceptive use is a rule that is being followed in actual behavior. Another factor that could be related to birth rate is the mother’s mean age at first birth, which tended to be lower (early 20s) in countries with higher birth rates like Mexico and Peru and higher (late 20s/early 30s) in countries like Australia and Japan. The countries with higher birth rates also had lower standards of living, as reflected in their GDPs per capita. This leads me to believe that lower standards of living might well be related to higher infant mortality rates and thus higher birth rates, as giving birth to more children could be a means of combating the greater chances of losing an infant once they are born, no matter the predominant religion of the country. In addition, it could be likely that the women in these countries are having babies earlier in their lives because they face more risks and lower quality of life, which means they need to start earlier to have more children in case any of them die. While the countries with higher birth rates did tend to have, on average, somewhat lower literacy rates and life expectancies, these did not appear to be significant enough to indicate any type of correlation between the factors. In addition, the respective contraceptive prevalence rates seemed to have no correlation with birth rates at all, for the similarity of prevalence of contraceptives in countries such as Peru, with a birth rate of 18.85/1,000, and Spain, with a birth rate of 10.14/1,000, simply did not match up with the discrepancies in birth rate.

Lauren Week

Aryella Moreh

Nations with Notable Catholic Populations:

Mexico:

76.5% Roman Catholic

19.13 births/1000 population

Infant mortality: 17.29 deaths/1000 births

Life expectancy: 76.5 years

School life expectancy: 14 years

Spain

96% Roman Catholic

10.66 births/1000 population

Infant mortality: 3.39 deaths/1000 births

Life expectancy: 81.2 years
School life expectancy: 17 years

Italy

90% Roman Catholic

9.18 births/1000 population

Infant mortality: 3.38 deaths/1000 births

Life expectancy: 81.7 years

School life expectancy: 16 years

Philippines

83% Catholic

24.62 births/1000 pupulation

Infant mortality: 18.19 deaths/1000 births

Life expectancy: 72.21 years

School life expectancy: 11 years

Brazil

73.6% Roman Catholic

14.97 births/1000 population

Infant mortality: 19.83 deaths/1000 births

Life expectancy: 73.02 years

School life expectancy: 14 years

Andorra

94% Roman Catholic

8.88 births/1000 population

Infant mortality: 3.73 deaths/1000 births

Life expectancy: 82.58 year

School life expectancy: 12 years

Nations without Notable Catholic Populations

Algeria

0.01% Roman Catholic

24.25 births/1000

Infant mortality: 22.57 deaths/1000

Life expectancy: 76.18 years

School life expectancy: 14 years

Armenia

3.7% Roman Catholic

12.86 births/1000

Infant mortality: 17.59 deaths/1000

Life expectancy: 73.75 years

School life expectancy: 12 years

Djibouti

0.2% Catholic

24.5 births/1000 population

Infant mortality: 51.77 deaths/1000 births

Life expectancy: 61.99 years

School life expectancy: 6 years

*Conclusions/Analysis:

I examined birth rates, infant mortality, overall life expectancy, and education levels of counties in order to study the relationship between Catholicism and birth rates. Although we would assume that countries with notable Catholic populations would have higher birthrates in accordance with the papal edict against birth control, based on the evidence provided by these nine countries, there seems to be an insignificant relationship between Catholicism and birth rate. Rather, the evidence seems to demonstrate a strong correlation between the birth rate and infant mortality.

The correlation between birth rate and infant mortality levels reflects patters of r-selection and K-selection. The r/K Selection Theory is a model used to understand reproductive adaptation based on parental investment and the quality and quantity of offspring. Organisms that follow the model of K-selection bear fewer offspring, but experience lower infant mortality. They are adapted to a stable environment and recognize that there are few resources available. Also, they are heavily invested in their offspring. Moreover, organisms that follow the model of r-selection bear more offspring, but experience high levels of infant mortality. They inhabit unstable and resource-poor environments. Also, they are less invested in their offspring than K-selected species. In general, animals with reliable but limited resources tend to bear few offspring in which they are highly invested. In contrast, animals with unreliable resources bear many offspring with the knowledge that few will survive to a viable age—demonstrating that patterns of reproduction are determined by environmental factors. This tendency is strongly present in humans as well, as illustrated by the data provided by these nine countries.

Furthermore, these nine countries generally illustrated a correlation between education and birth rate. Aside from Andorra, the countries with a school life expectancy of 14 years or lower also had high birth rates and high levels of infant mortality. This reflects the tendency of parents following the K-selection patter of reproduction to have higher levels of education.

Countries like Italy or Spain, followed the K-selection model of reproduction, reflected by lower birth rates and low levels of infant mortality. In contrast, countries like Djibouti (which does not have a notable Catholic population) and Mexico (which does have a notable Catholic population), followed the r-selection model, reflected by high birthrates and high mortality rates. It is evident that the high birth rates correspond with high levels of infant mortality. Applying the model of r-selection, it can be assumed that these high birth rates are a response to high levels of infant mortality, in order to maintain the population despite unstable environmental conditions.

Alicia Fong

Data:

Philippines

·               82.9% Catholic

·               Birth Rate: 24.63 births/1,000 population

·               Life expectancy at birth: 72.21 years

·               Infant mortality rate: 18.19 deaths/1,000 live births

Italy

·               90% Roman Catholic 

·               Birth Rate: 9.18 births/1,000 population

·               Life expectancy at birth: 81.7 years

·               Infant mortality rate: 3.38 deaths/1,000 live births

Spain

·               96% Roman Catholic

·               Birth Rate: 10.66 births /1,000 population

·               Life expectancy: 81.2 years

·               Infant mortality rate: 3.39 deaths/1000 live births

Mexico

·               76.5% Roman Catholic

·               Birth Rate: 19.13 births/1,000 population

·               Life expectancy: 76.5 years

·               Infant mortality rate: 17.29 deaths/1,000 live births

France

·               83%-88% Roman Catholic

·               Birth Rate: 12.6 births/1,000 population

·               Life expectancy: 81.56 years

·               Infant mortality rate: 3.34 deaths/1,000 live births

Poland

·               89.8% Roman Catholic

·               Birth Rate: 9.88 births/1,000 population

·               Life expectancy: 76.45 years

·               Infant mortality rate: 6.3 deaths/1,000 live births

Indonesia

·               3% Roman Catholic

·               Birth Rate: 17.38 births/1,000 population

·               Life expectancy: 71.9 years

·               Infant mortality rate: 26.06 deaths/1,000 live births

Japan

·               .40% Catholics

·               Birth Rate: 8.23 births/1,000 population

·               Life expectancy: 84.19 years

·               Infant mortality rate: 2.17 deaths/1,000 live births

Sweden

·               1.6% Catholic

·               Birth Rate: 10.33 births/1,000 population

·               Life expectancy: 81.28 years

·               Infant mortality rate: 2.73 deaths/1,000 live births

Based on the data, it is clear that there is no correlation between birth rate and the practice of Catholicism. The assumption that countries with a higher percentage of practicing Catholics having a higher birth rate than those countries that have a lower percentage of practicing Catholic is false. The Philippines, Italy, Spain, Mexico, France and Poland are all countries with Catholic populations higher than 75%, and yet their birth rates range from 24.62 births/1,000 population to 9.18 births/1,000 population. Meanwhile, Indonesia, Japan and Sweden are countries with a Catholic population lower than 5%, and their birth rates also range from high to low, similar to the countries with high Catholic populations. It is clear that just because a country has a high percentage of practicing Catholics does not mean that their birth rate will be higher than those who do not.

Despite the low use of birth control in countries with high Catholic percentages, the birth rate is not controlled by the practicing religion of the respective countries. There could be other factors in play here, such as the how-to-knowledge and the successful education of the public about contraceptives, depending on if the country is a third-world country or not. Overall, it is safe to say that birth rate is not based on the majority of religion in the case of practicing Catholicism.

Debbie Phoung

6 Nations (>65% Catholics)

Argentina Catholics: 92% Birth rate: 17.12/1,000 Death rate: 7.35/1,000 (0.735%) Infant mortality rate: 10.24/100,000 (0.01%) Average lifespan: 77.32 years Contraceptive prevalence rate: 78.9% Literacy: 97.9% School life expectancy: 16 years GDP per capita: $18,400 Unemployment: 7.2% Population below poverty line: 30%	Cape Verde Catholics: 92.64% Birth rate: 20.96/1,000 Death rate: 6.22/1,000 Infant mortality rate: 25.13/1,000 Average Lifespan: 71.28 Contraceptive prevalence rate: 61.3% Literacy: 84.9% School life expectancy: 13 years GDP per capita: $4,200 Unemployment: 21% Population below poverty line: 30%	Ecuador Catholics: 95% Birth rate: 19.23/1,000 Death rate: 5.03/1,000 Infant mortality rate: 18.48/1,000 Average Lifespan: 76.15 years Contraceptive prevalence rate: 72.7% Literacy: 91.6% School life expectancy: 14 years GDP per capita: $10,200 Unemployment: 4.9% Population below poverty line: 27.3%
Italy Catholics: 90% Birth rate: 8.94/1,000 Death rate: 10.01/1,000 Infant mortality rate: 3.33/1,000 Average Lifespan: 81.95 Contraceptive prevalence rate: 62.7% Literacy: 99% School life expectancy: 16 years GDP per capita: $30,600 Unemployment: 10.6% Population below poverty line: 19.6%	Mexico Catholics: 82.7% Birth rate: 18.61/1,000 Death rate: 4.94/1,000 Infant mortality rate: 16.26/1,000 Average Lifespan: 78.86 Contraceptive prevalence rate: 70.9% Literacy: 93.5% School life expectancy: 14 years GDP per capita: $15,600 Unemployment: 5% Population below poverty line: 51.3%	Poland Catholics: 89.8% (75% practicing) Birth rate: 9.88/1,000 Death rate: 10.31/1,000 Infant mortality rate: 6.3/1,000 Average Lifespan: 76.45 Contraceptive prevalence rate: 72.7% Literacy: 99.7% School life expectancy: 15 years GDP per capita: $20,900 Unemployment: 12.8% Population below poverty line: 10.6%

OUTGROUP: 3 Nations (<5% Catholics)

Japan Catholics: 0.4% Birth rate: 8.23/1,000 Death rate: 9.27/1,000 Infant mortality rate: 2.17/1,000 Average Lifespan: 84.19 Contraceptive prevalence rate: 54.3% Literacy: 99% School life expectancy: 15 years GDP per capita: $36,900 Unemployment: 4.4% Population below poverty line: 16%

Afghanistan Catholics: 0.0003% Birth rate: 39.05/1,000 Death rate: 14.35/1,000 Infant mortality rate: 119.41/1,000 Average Lifespan: 50.11 Contraceptive prevalence rate: 21.8% Literacy: 28.1% School life expectancy: 8 years GDP per capita: $1,100 Unemployment: 35% Population below poverty line: 36%

Egypt Catholics: 0.35% Birth rate: 23.79/1,000 Death rate: 4.79/1,000 Infant mortality rate: 23.3/1,000 Average Lifespan: 73.19 years Contraceptive prevalence rate: 60.3% Literacy: 73.9% School life expectancy: 12 years GDP per capita: $6,700 Unemployment: 13.5% Population below poverty line: 20%

Analysis/Conclusion

In the above tables, I have gathered statistical data on nine different nations, particularly focusing on the statistics for the percentage of Catholics, birth rate, death rate, infant mortality rate, average lifespan, contraceptive prevalence rate, literacy, school life expectancy, GDP per capita, unemployment, and population below poverty line. The first six nations are nations that have greater than 65% of the population that are Catholics. The other 3 nations are the outgroup where less than 5% of the population are Catholics. 

There is the general position that artificial birth control is prohibited among practitioners of Catholicism. With this fact, there is a reasonable assumption that nations with large Catholic populations would have birth rates that reflect an absence of birth control measures, which means higher birth with less birth control. This also means that nations that do not have a significant population that is prohibited from using artificial birth control measures would have lower birth rates. However, according to the statistics listed above that were collected from nine nations, these assumptions are not valid.

            There is the assumption that if there is less birth control, then there would be higher birth rate. However, if we look at the statistics above with the 6 nations that have greater than 65% Roman Catholics in their population and compare it with the outgroup, it is evident that this is not true. The birth rates for the outgroup, with the exception of Japan, are much higher than the birth rates for the six nations. Afghanistan and Egypt have a birth rate of about 39.05 births/1,000 population and 23.79 births/1,000 population, respectively, while the six nations that are heavily Catholic have a much lower birth rate. If the assumptions were valid, these statistics should be reversed. The birth rate for the six nations that are heavily populated with Catholics should have higher birth rates than the nations that are not heavily Catholic. This leads us to believe that a high percentage of Catholicism does not have a correlation with a high birth rate, and that there are other variables that appear to correlate more closely with birth rates than religious belief.

            In accordance with the statistics above, the conclusion can be made that there are other factors contributing to birth rate. If we look at the six nations, they all have similar statistics in regards to infant mortality rate, average lifespan, average income, and average education level. All the six nations have relatively low mortality rate, a high average lifespan (about 70-80 years), a decent sustainable income, and high literacy rates. Taking this into account and considering the k-selection/k-strategy, there is fewer offspring when there is lower mortality rate and high education levels. Also if we take the statistics from Japan in the outgroup, they look similar to the statistics of the other six nations. Because this nation is low in population of Catholics, the assumption should be that they should have a lower birth rate, however, it has a similar birth rate as the other six nations. This can be accounted to the fact that they are a literate country with low mortality rate. Therefore, it can be assumed that these factors play a part in birth rate. As further evidence that these factors play a part in birth rate, we need to look at the statistics for Afghanistan and Egypt. These nations should have a low birth rate under the assumption that they have a low population of Catholics (more birth control = lower birth rate). However, we see that their birth rates are high. And if we look at the statistics for infant mortality rate, they are relatively high (119.41births/1,000 population and 23.3 births/1,000 population) compared to the other six nations. Their average lifespan and literacy rates are also relatively low. Looking at these patterns, it is evident that the assumptions made about Catholicism having a correlation with a high birth rate are invalid. There are other variables that appear to correlate more closely with birth rates, such as mortality rate, average lifespan, income, and education.

Clement Tam

Question: Do nations with higher populations of Catholics have higher birthrates as a result of the Papal Encyclical Humanae Vitae from Pope Paul VI denouncing the use of birth control.

Study Group:

Country	% of population that are Catholic	Birth rate per 1000 people	Infant Mortality Rate per 1000 births/Rank in the world	Death Rate Per 1000 people	Life Expectancy	Literacy Rate	GDP per capita in USD
Paraguay	91	16.95	21/86th	4.61	76.6	93.9%	$6,200
Monaco	90	6.79	1.8/224th	8.75	89.63	99%	$70,700
Ireland	83	15.5	3.78/203rd	6.4	80.44	99%	$42,300
Spain	94	10.14	3.35/214th	8.94	81.37	97.7	$31,100
Argentina	92	17.12	10.24/143rd	7.35	77.32	97.9	$18,400
Philippines	81	24.62	18.19/99th	4.95	72.21	95.4%	$4500

Out group:

Country	% of population that are Catholic	Birth rate per 1000 population	Infant Mortality Rate	Death Rate Per 1000 people	Life Expectancy	Literacy Rate	GDP per capita
Norway	5	10.8	3.47	9.21	80.44	100%	$55,900
Niger	0.1	46.84	87.98	13.07	54.34	28.7%	$800
Bulgaria	1	9.07	15.6	14.31	74.08	98.4%	$14,500

Conclusions:

Based on the data from the randomly selected nations in the “Study Group”, it appears that the fact that they were Catholic had little to no impact on their birthrates. Take for instance the country of Monaco. It has one of the lowest birthrates in the world, but has a Catholic population of 90%. Additionally, if you examine the statistics of Spain, the data indicates that its birth rate is not relatively very high considering that the nation is 94% Catholic. Both these nations have low infant mortality rates and relatively high GDP per capita. It appears, at least in the “Study Group” that birth rates were determined more by a combination of factors including the GDP per capita, and the infant mortality rate than whether or not the nation was predominantly populated by Catholics. This trend is evidenced by the statistics of the nations of Paraguay and the Philippines, both those nations have relatively low GDP per capita and relatively high infant mortality rates and coincidentally have higher birth rates. It would appear that infant mortality rates and income are the major factors that influence birth rates. Infant mortality rate is an influences most likely because, as humans, we are seeking to propagate our species. This is done through having kids. If the rate at which our kids die is greater than the rate at which they are produced, then the chances of propagating are significantly affected in the negative. GDP per capita is also a factor, because GDP is a figure used to measure the relative wealth of a nation via is economic output. Countries with lower GDP’s tend to have lower standards of living and more dilapidated infrastructure. This implies that living conditions and thus chances of living a comfortable life are lower. Literacy rates appear to not have much of an impact as they are pretty standard across the board.

The out group nations also echoed the conclusion that birthrates appear tied to GDP and infant mortality rate. Norway, Niger and Bulgaria do not have a significant population that subscribed to a major relation. They also have low percentages of their population who are Catholics. The best example of this trend in the out group is the country of Niger. Niger has the highest birth rate out of all the nations in the world. It has a GDP per capita of $800 and an infant mortality rate of 87.9 per 1000 live births. It would appear that the low incomes and associated living conditions contribute to the high infant mortality rate. In order to compensate for this and maintain the population equilibrium, the birth rate is higher.  The is especially apparent when that nation is juxtaposed with a nation like Norway which has a lower birth rate, high GDP per capita and low infant mortality rate.

*It is important to note that there is a slight trend that nations with lower literacy rates have slightly higher birthrates than nations with higher literacy rates.

* It is also important to note that Ireland seems to be an outlier in this study. It has a relatively high literacy rate and GDP per capita and a low infant mortality rate, but has a relatively high birth rate when compared to other nations in the study group. It would appear that the statistics of this nation may indicated the effectiveness of the Papal Encyclical Humanae Vitae.

*It is also important to note that Bulgaria is an outlier in the “out group.” It has a relatively high infant mortality rate but has a birth rate that does not seem to compensate for it.