Faroe Islands fact of the day

by  Tyler Cowen in

Actuality, the Faroe Islands have a crude birth rate higher than that of Denmark, Sweden, or Norway. Their fertility rate of 2.37 is higher than anywhere else in the White world:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html

That is from Jason Bayz.

Comments

whahae

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This conclusively settles it: Jews aren't white.

Dangerman

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Yup, Isreal's total fertility rate is over 3.

Hazel Meade

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Don't Jews have similar restrictions and commandments wrt birth control as conservative Christians? Or is it just have as many kids as possible because God said so?

Jan

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I must be truly ignorant on this one, but I always thought conservative Christians tended to have more kids for cultural reasons rather than religious doctrine.

msgkings

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I'm no expert but with Catholics, it's the religion. No birth control allowed. Not that most of them listen anymore.

Cliff

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Sephardic Jews aren't

Maximum

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Some jews are white, some are black (ethiopian ones for example) some are asian (Mumbai jews), etc.

It's not a heterogenous group and anyone who has been to israel would agree with that. Many (most?) of the population there are descended from Jews in the "middle east", from Marakesh to Mumbai, with Cairo, Baghdad t. Tehran, and Yemen being well represented.

msgkings

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Are Arabs also not "white"? I can't keep all the racialisms straight.

Cliff

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Arabs are not generally considered white in the U.S.

Roy LC

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Yet in my mother's day, and my grandmother's they were.

Danny Thomas isn't white, Jean Hagen was in an interracial relationship on tv in the 50s? Casey Kasem was passing when he gave voice to Shaggy.

I never knew whiteness was contracting...

anon

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For me, a big red flag about "race" is that it is always a "two, three .. no four .. wait five" thing. If it doesn't come out of the DNA(*), and it doesn't, then it is all social and often sadly exclusionary.

* - it would have been wonderful for "believers in race" if DNA sampling had produced actual White genes and Black genes. That is a scientific test that made Barack Obama one or the other. Instead there are only regional correlations that "race believers" squint at and squish until they come back as the number of "races" they believe in at the moment.

Jason Bayz

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@Roy LC

Steve Sailer calls it the 'flight from White.' It makes sense if you consider the difference in religion(Christian vs Muslim), numbers, and behavior of the Arab immigrants then vs now.

Horhe

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@Cliff

Yet the US Census puts them and North Africans, Afghans etc as White. They are lobbying now to be acknowledged in their own category for the purpose of securing preferences etc. Fleeing whiteness shows where the real balance of power lies today in the US. To my knowledge, subcontinental Indians managed years ago to be recognized as a separate group from Whites, for the same purpose. If white privilege were a thing, you'd see more one drop minorities and the Rachel Dolezals and Shaun Kings of the world being as white as they could.

Cliff

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anon,

The "races" are getting more discrete, not less- i.e. more genetically loaded and less social. Closer to ethnicity and farther from convenient groupings for the purposes of rough categorization.

Obviously races are rough popular groupings based on observable characteristics, but genetics and science in general show that the concept is meaningful. For example, African Americans have dramatically different rates of various diseases than "whites" (i.e. Europeans). Is that all an illusion? Should we abandon the concept of black and white and start separating out every genetic subpopulation or every family? We would never obtain any meaningful information with the resources available. Should we forget all the important medical information we know about different races because they are all "just social" even if it costs lives?

Urso

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Is "white" different from "White?" That capital W seems semantically loaded.

anon

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I did not comment on this, but since you did .. I think White is probably in a lot of old style guides. Perhaps in academic publishing it is still the norm. That said, yes, I think in general discourse White is used by people who think it is a Race, and white by people who believe less in race.

A Definite Beta Guy

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So is SWPL capital White or lower-case white?

anon

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According to the experts ..

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=SWPL

Horhe

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It's about respect, and capitalizing Black or People of Colour, while leaving white like this, is an implicit insult. Just like the continuous acceptability of ethnic slurs like whitebread and redneck in an otherwise hysterically sensitive society.

Urso

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Same holds true for capitalizing Black (although African-American only looks right capitalized, for whatever reason). People of Colo[u]r is semantically loaded whether it's capitalized or not.

anon

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African, like Asian, is a place name thing. I think most style guides would stick with capitalization. The words "white" and "black" are colors, and there is not a style guide rule that colors be capitalized.

Cliff

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Nor are people colors

Troll me

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You need a capital letter for your skin colour?

I think the one that comes with the continent (European), language (English), ancestry (whatever it is will get capital letters), etc., are quite enough.

Or maybe we should get our priorities straight.

A Large breasted and attractive women with Blue eyes and Dark hair strutted her stuff, while Brown men refrained from whistling their approval.

For real though, in empirical stuff, I understand that people want a way to denote variable groups, etc., which enter into the analysis. I tend to suggest something like using italics, which would not deny the facts of biological differences in these categories (duh, I can tell the difference between brown and pink), but in so doing sort of draws attention to the fact that these categories are in part constructed regardless of whichever observable differences there might be.

The matter seems to arise mostly for the USA and South Africa. Of course, there is no racism or particular sorts of view about "race" in either of those countries.

Me? I feel like less of a man when my bodily attributes are not accorded capital letters.

carlolspln

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"It’s about respect, and capitalizing Black or People of Colour, while leaving white like this" [SNIP]

Buck up, Hehor!

Karaite

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Screw that. I'm Jewish and I'm white (quite happy to be white, too). Both sides of my bloodline are white too. So is almost every other Jew I know. When you think of Jews, the people you're probably picturing are white.

Hazel Meade

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Bored people have more sex.
Also, probably children as a from of entertainment.

Jason Bayz

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It's possible. Other possible explanations:

1. The isolated nature of the archipelago activates a psychological mechanism which leads individuals to subconsciously think they will be less able to rely on society in old age or Bad Times, so they have larger families.

2. The rural, isolated, fishing based economy leads to sexier men and women who are more eager to have these men's children than the urban, office-heavy economy of Denmark.

Roy LC

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Places where traditional gender roles are economically reinforced seem to have higher birthrates, in the US, but I would like to see a study on this. Especially one disentangling spatial and land tenure issues. Rural Finland has had a greater decline in birthrate than anywhere else in the country.

Thor

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I have been putting on a few pounds, sure, but I had hoped no one had noticed...

A Definite Beta Guy

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No way, yuppies and hipsters are the ULTIMATE in sexy. A guy who works with his HANDS? EWWWWW!

Danton

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Unlikely Denmark abortion is only legal in case of incest/rape or danger to the health of the mother (though you can travel to Denmark for it).

and there's the whole rural, religious thing that probably helps too.

Roy LC

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There has also been a religious revival on the Faroes since the early 80s with American style Lutheran Evangelism and Charismatics are not uncommon.

Sam Haysom

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That's very interesting Roy can you recommend any good articles that talk about the revival.

Roy LC

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My only knowledge is anecdotal it comes from a Danish and Norwegian fluent Faroese-American friend, from asides in various personal conversations that were mostly about the Norwegian evangelical right and Swedish politics, and from chance meetings with various US and Canadian pentecostals and other charismatics who had been there. I live and work in areas with lots of them and I like to talk to people.

I have never been near the place.

anon

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+1 like bonobos in zoos

O, how I wish that girl and I were bored

Li Zhi

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White world? Hey Tyler - I like your thinking. Let's also categorize the world populations based on, oh I don't know bra size, hip to waist ratios, or wait a minute, I've got it: shoe size. How offensive.

MC

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Bra and shoe size don't seem to be strongly determinant factors for who people tend to associate with, attend school with, worship with, make friends with...

Whereas race...

Jason Bayz

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+1

Most would have said "Western world" but meant White world, as they wouldn't include nations like Mexico even though they are Western in language and religion.

And most of those who would find it offensive are the type who will launch an hour later into a discussion of racial disparities in X. The White race doesn't exist except when it must be blamed for things.

msgkings

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I dunno, bra size is a factor for me :-)

TMC

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And shoe size for The Donald's wives.

Cooper

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What is the error bar on that TFR estimate?

With such a small population, we might be looking at some strange data.

I bet you could find nearly identical small towns in America with highly varied fertility rates that are merely the result of a few statistical fluctuations.

anon

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yes but that's just the "look elsewhere effect" in action

lvps1000vm

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Easiest explanation: Women whose life plan includes anything except being a home mom with kids... just emigrate.

The fertility rate of the suburbs is higher than that of the big city, and an isolated island is just like the suburbiest place.

Thor

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A lot of the young child-bearing aged women I know -- and I'm a married dad -- don't really have a well thought out life plan...

Also, there aren't that many "stay at home" moms in the Nordic world.

Miguel Madeira

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http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/faroe-islands/labor-force-participation-rate

"Labor force participation rate, female (% of female population ages 15+) (national estimate) in Faroe Islands was 79.40 as of 2013. Its highest value over the past 7 years was 83.50 in 2008, while its lowest value was 76.20 in 2011."

Compare with Denmark:

http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/denmark/labor-force-participation-rate

"Labor force participation rate, female (% of female population ages 15+) (national estimate) in Denmark was 58.10 as of 2014. Its highest value over the past 33 years was 62.40 in 1992, while its lowest value was 57.00 in 1981."

In a general way, my idea is that , in the developed world, there is a negative correlation between "stay-at-home" and fertility rate, with countries with more female work being also the countries with more children (yes, it is conterintuitive, but...)

Millian

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I am sure there are other areas of fewer than 50,000 people in the "White world" with higher fertility.

Cooper

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There are undoubtedly many counties in Utah with a TFR much higher than the Faroe Islands

Cyrus

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You can find any number of groups of N = 50,000 with similar or higher TFR in the United States.

Utah at N = 3,000,000 comes within a hairsbreadth.

buddyglass

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Just going to throw this out there: Utah.

buddyglass

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Jeez. Should really read the thread before posting.

Millian

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It's OK, you were almost correct. Anyway, this thread was essentially an excuse for TC to signal to people interested in the status of the White race that he respects their cause.

Careless

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You are such an idiot

Hazel Meade

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My theory about bored people having more sex applies there too. Also to Mormons in general.

Troll me

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I gather there isn't much of a rat race, or pressures to make it big, etc. In that respect, perhaps like similarly populated areas in America. So, the idea of having a kid at 22, say, and settling for OK grades in uni, might seem like an easier option in such circumstances.

Rob

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What about all those imported Filipinas and Thais TC was writing about? White?

Paul Ball

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Actually no idea what this post is getting at to be honest!

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