Population Growth

@gollum,

Are you asking about birth rate or fertility?

I read it as a question about birth rate.

Please clarify/confirm.

@Sturgis,

Sturgis wrote:

Both zinc and selenium have been shown to improve male fertility and help out the prostate.

Posts started going on about fertility rates which is the reason for my posting.

The fertility rate is generally measured as the number of births per 1000 women. Condom use is a much bigger factor than any selenium deficiency.

This is a thread titled "population growth".

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

That's not how I calculate fertility rates.

I prefer the natural and actual levels of fertility in a person. This would involve healthy sperm in healthy semen for males and healthy ovum (eggs) and ovaries for the female.

Condoms, birth control pills, IUDs, hysterectomies, tube ties, vasectomies and other means of consciously preventing pregnancies are not, to me, measures of what actual fertility is.

1 Reply

@Sturgis,

Ok. You can define the term "fertility rate" in any way you choose. The term has a common understood meaning which differs from your personal definition.

In a thread titled "Population Growth", the commonly understood definition of "fertility rate" meaning the number of births per 1000 women is the relevant one. The number of births prevented by birth control (and first world adults simply choosing to limit the number of children they have) is far greater than the number of births prevented by infertility.

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GMO maybe?

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@Hodgarrik,

Hodgarrik wrote:

GMO maybe?

** sigh **

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@ehBeth,

Gullum's OP referred to a declining replacement rate, and it was upon that basis that I responded to the thread.

Hi, Minnie.

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth-

Thank you.

Why the indigenous people living in W. Europe are bearing few children and Moslems who have moved to W. Europe are producing many.

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@gollum,

This is the OP. Note the statement that the groups to which he refers are not producing enough children to maintain their population[s]. That is the replacement rate referred to in demographic discussions of total fertility rates.

gollum wrote:

I believe people in some ethnicities (e.g., Whites in N.America and W. Europe, and Japanese people) are not giving birth to enough children to maintain their population.

Other peoples are increasing in population (e.g., Third World).

Why?

This Wikipedia article describes total fertility rate, which ought not to be confused with birth rate, which some here are doing (willfully?). Note the caveat at the beginning of the article: Not to be confused with birth rate.

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@gollum,

Please refer to my earlier remark to the effect that the total fertility rate in the United States is misleading, because of immigration. The total fertility rate of immigrant populations falls in the second and subsequent generations, and this is why city states such as Macau and Singapore encourage immigration--to keep their total fertility rate at a higher number.

You keep throwing ethnicity, and now, apparently, religion into the mix. Neither factor is significant in total fertility rate calculations.

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@Setanta,

The point that Setanta misses is that the use of birth control, or the simple choice of not having children, has a significant impact on both fertility rate and birth rate. Compared to these effects which are strongly correlated to wealth and education any purported impact of selenium, or GMOs, or alien conspiracy are insignificant.

Raising the education level of a demographic group (particularly for the women) will substantially lower the fertility rate. Giving them non-organic food will not.

If you want to increase the fertility rate for a given population, take away their educational opportunities, restrict their ability to earn money, and remove access to family planning information or resources. Compared to that, increasing their intake of selenium will do next to nothing.

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@Setanta,

I do agree with Setanta about this.

The racial conspiracy theory that is hinted at by the OP is both troubling, and illogical.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona-

I don't know what OP means.

Just to avoid possible confusion, I do not believe that there is any racial conspiracy.

I guess the point is that most poor couples want to have a larger number of children than do rich couples and so the rich couples use birth control to limit the number of children while the poor couples do not.

The reason that poor people want more children used to be to have them work for the family (e.g., on the farm, in the home) and because some of the children were expected to die young. Now that it is expensive to raise children and the parents don't have a farm, I don't know why they do, what they do.

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@gollum,

ok - you are asking about birth rate , not fertility

one group uses birth control more regularly than the other

the reason, very generally, has to do with religious beliefs

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@gollum,

depending on the context of the sentence, OP can mean original post, original poster, opening post, opening poster.

generally it refers to who/whatever started a thread/line of discussion

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@gollum,

gollum wrote:

indigenous people living in W. Europe are bearing few children and Moslems who have moved to W. Europe are producing many.

good thing that someone's having babies there. Western Europe needs more people to get the work done - they've had low birth rates for a long time.

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@Setanta,

The OP is asking about the birth rate.

Political correctness rarely factors into their questions eh.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

You keep throwing ethnicity, and now, apparently, religion into the mix. Neither factor is significant in total fertility rate calculations.

that's because that is what this poster consistently is interested in

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@gollum,

gollum wrote:

Just to avoid possible confusion, I do not believe that there is any racial conspiracy.

I guess the point is that most poor couples want to have a larger number of children than do rich couples and so the rich couples use birth control to limit the number of children while the poor couples do not.

The reason that poor people want more children used to be to have them work for the family (e.g., on the farm, in the home) and because some of the children were expected to die young.

that's certainly what we were taught in school in the 1960's

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Population Growth

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