Here's the breakdown from the 2021 Australian census of how many children each woman in her 40s has had, broken down by religion. https://mappage.net.au/?s=qm8746df
Sikh women had the smallest % with no kids.
LDS were most likely to have many children, followed by Muslims.
Regressions don’t show causal order. I think an alternative hypothesis to be considered is that women who don’t have children are being excluded from evangelical and catholic churches, either because of the antiLGBTQ discrimination directly or because of the misogyny of those churches (and not having a kid to hold them there for the kid’s sake). I am exRC for those reasons.
There is no misogyny in churches. You haven't read the Bible if you actually think that. and as far as the ltgb+++ouighfihjofjd "community" goes, they shouldn't be having children, let alone influencing them.
I think it's wrong to equate the belief that one should not have sex before marriage with purity culture. The first is pretty standard traditional religious morality, the second also has a lot of add ons that can overemphasize the idea of purity and deemphasize the fact we are all sinners and God loves sinners.
For sure. The purity culture angle has a lot of nuance that has to be taken account, from what was taught to how it was put into practice at the congregational level. Would be great if someone could look at the many anecdotes from people who grew up in it and get some nice data charts and tables out of it!
Are LDS lumped in with Protestants, or are they classified with “Other?” Without knowing where they are the graphs about number of children have less clarity.
He lumped LDS with "other" (see paragraph 4). As a Latter-day Saint myself, and a research psychologist specializing in religion, I strongly disagree with that data decision. Admittedly, there aren't many of us in any given sample, so it probably doesn't make much difference in the final results where we get slotted, but Latter-day Saints are vastly more theologically and demographically similar to evangelicals (I say with chagrin) than we are to non-Christian religions like Islam or Buddhism!
Honestly (and I say this as somebody who loves my LDS cousins) you have a lot more in common with Orthodox Jews and Muslims in terms of actually making some sacrifices to live out your faith authentically. If you believe LDS are Christians-and I know there is quibbling about this—they are the last remaining Christians other than the Aumish and a few slivers of Orthodox this and that and even smaller slivers of Catholics that will make any actual sacrifices to live into the teachings of their faith.
The numbers on Roman Catholic childbearing surprise me. But I will say the "quiver full" concept may have gained popularity among trad Protestants in recent years. So maybe as RCs are not as intent on large families, trad Prots have become more intent to have large families.
I think elevated Roman Catholic fertility persisted through the Boomers but people haven't really updated their understanding of reality in 30-40 years. Also the "Catholic" label is sticky and non-believers raised in the faith are likelier to hold onto it than the various Protestant labels ("cultural Catholics").
Over the last few decades fertility has decreased significantly among nearly every American group, even the Amish, but Evangelicals have seen less decline than average. Quiverfull might have grown on the margin, or maybe it hasn't, but I think it's mostly just that the median Millennial Evangelical is forming families as if he were a typical American born roughly 20 years earlier.
I don't think that Protestants have any kind of long-standing tradition of having fewer kids. The RCC has been more vocally pro-natalist since they objected to the Pill (this dates to 1960), and even that is discounted by the practice of many Catholics (see the charts above). In other words, the huge Catholic family stereotype is the innovation.
Here's the breakdown from the 2021 Australian census of how many children each woman in her 40s has had, broken down by religion. https://mappage.net.au/?s=qm8746df
Sikh women had the smallest % with no kids.
LDS were most likely to have many children, followed by Muslims.
Regressions don’t show causal order. I think an alternative hypothesis to be considered is that women who don’t have children are being excluded from evangelical and catholic churches, either because of the antiLGBTQ discrimination directly or because of the misogyny of those churches (and not having a kid to hold them there for the kid’s sake). I am exRC for those reasons.
There is no misogyny in churches. You haven't read the Bible if you actually think that. and as far as the ltgb+++ouighfihjofjd "community" goes, they shouldn't be having children, let alone influencing them.
I think it's wrong to equate the belief that one should not have sex before marriage with purity culture. The first is pretty standard traditional religious morality, the second also has a lot of add ons that can overemphasize the idea of purity and deemphasize the fact we are all sinners and God loves sinners.
For sure. The purity culture angle has a lot of nuance that has to be taken account, from what was taught to how it was put into practice at the congregational level. Would be great if someone could look at the many anecdotes from people who grew up in it and get some nice data charts and tables out of it!
Just b/c God loves you doesn't mean you should willingly sin.
"Blame" is kind of harsh; "correlated" would a much more scientific statement.
Are LDS lumped in with Protestants, or are they classified with “Other?” Without knowing where they are the graphs about number of children have less clarity.
He lumped LDS with "other" (see paragraph 4). As a Latter-day Saint myself, and a research psychologist specializing in religion, I strongly disagree with that data decision. Admittedly, there aren't many of us in any given sample, so it probably doesn't make much difference in the final results where we get slotted, but Latter-day Saints are vastly more theologically and demographically similar to evangelicals (I say with chagrin) than we are to non-Christian religions like Islam or Buddhism!
https://www.thearda.com/data-archive?fid=NSFG17F&tab=2
If you search that codebook for the term "latter" or "saint" - it will yield zero responses.
It is impossible for me to break any smaller religious group out because they didn't include variables to make that possible.
I got into tremendous detail in this post about why it's very to do any analysis of a group that makes up 1% of the population here:
https://religionnews.com/2021/11/05/how-religious-is-your-average-22-year-old-a-new-golden-age-of-survey-data-opens-a-door/
In fact, it was nearly impossible to do any analysis of a randomly selected sample of LDS until about fifteen years ago.
Thanks…….you are doing great work. It must be a bit frustrating to have a nitpicked who didn’t read the footnotes.
Honestly (and I say this as somebody who loves my LDS cousins) you have a lot more in common with Orthodox Jews and Muslims in terms of actually making some sacrifices to live out your faith authentically. If you believe LDS are Christians-and I know there is quibbling about this—they are the last remaining Christians other than the Aumish and a few slivers of Orthodox this and that and even smaller slivers of Catholics that will make any actual sacrifices to live into the teachings of their faith.
Here's some Australian census numbers (so a nice big sample size) https://mappage.net.au/?s=qm8746df
But LDS are very small here, so you need to put the mouse halfway along the bottom bar and scroll the mouse to zoom in.
21% of LDS women in their 40s had had 5+ children; a larger proportion that any other religious affiliation.
Can we say that its religion causing the action? For me, I came back to being a regular church member when I got married and had kids.
The numbers on Roman Catholic childbearing surprise me. But I will say the "quiver full" concept may have gained popularity among trad Protestants in recent years. So maybe as RCs are not as intent on large families, trad Prots have become more intent to have large families.
That's just speculation on my part.
I think elevated Roman Catholic fertility persisted through the Boomers but people haven't really updated their understanding of reality in 30-40 years. Also the "Catholic" label is sticky and non-believers raised in the faith are likelier to hold onto it than the various Protestant labels ("cultural Catholics").
Over the last few decades fertility has decreased significantly among nearly every American group, even the Amish, but Evangelicals have seen less decline than average. Quiverfull might have grown on the margin, or maybe it hasn't, but I think it's mostly just that the median Millennial Evangelical is forming families as if he were a typical American born roughly 20 years earlier.
I don't think that Protestants have any kind of long-standing tradition of having fewer kids. The RCC has been more vocally pro-natalist since they objected to the Pill (this dates to 1960), and even that is discounted by the practice of many Catholics (see the charts above). In other words, the huge Catholic family stereotype is the innovation.