{"id":8746,"date":"2009-09-22T00:49:14","date_gmt":"2009-09-22T07:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8746"},"modified":"2009-09-22T00:49:14","modified_gmt":"2009-09-22T07:49:14","slug":"fertility-rates-infant-mortality-mark-steyn-race-and-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8746","title":{"rendered":"Fertility Rates, Infant Mortality, Mark Steyn, Race and Racism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing to Mark Steyn<\/a>, Mark Adomanis points out that the “infant mortality rate is significantly higher in the US than it is in the UK. In fact, if you want to be precise, it’s 34% higher.”<\/p>\n

Steyn replies:<\/p>\n

As to infant mortality rates in general, as with “life expectancy at birth”, that’s a very interesting topic that I will be writing about at length in the weeks ahead. But, even without taking into account the significant variations in the definition of “live birth”, one thing you notice is that, by comparison with the United States, the countries with the lowest “infant mortality rate” have some of the lowest fertility rates on the planet. That’s to say, it’s not just that they have fewer infant deaths, they have fewer infants, period. They have so few, indeed, that over the medium-term (in Italy, Germany and elsewhere) it will render their government health systems unsustainable. But, as a general proposition, I would say that, when fertility rates get as low as they are in Germany, Italy, Spain and elsewhere, to the point that you now have upside-down family trees of four grandparents, two children, one grandchild, it’s hardly surprising that “infant mortality” is lower.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m a little confused as to what Steyn is saying. It’s possible that Steyn is arguing that a lower infant population, in and of itself, explains a lower infant mortality rate. As PG points out<\/a>, if that’s Steyn’s thought, then Steyn misunderstands basic statistics.<\/p>\n

Another possibility is that Steyn is saying that if there are more parents and grandparents per infant, that infant will get more attention and thus be less likely to die. That would make more sense, but I can’t find any evidence to support this proposition. (For instance, all else held equal, are only children significantly more likely to survive infancy than second children?)<\/p>\n

That said, even if Steyn is mistaken about the cause of the link, he’s right that low infant mortality rates and low fertility rates are strongly correlated. As this World Bank paper<\/a> points out, the trends mutually feed into each other: “Lower infant mortality can lead to lower fertility by reducing the need for replacement births. Conversely, birth spacing improves the chances of child survival.” ((For a more detailed discussion, see this paper (pdf link)<\/a>. )) (And, of course, both lower infant mortality and lower fertility are made more likely by wealth.)<\/p>\n

However, Steyn is wrong to imply that the U.S. can’t lower our appalling infant mortality rate without dropping our fertility rate. Contrary to what Steyn seems to believe, there are many countries with low infant mortality rates where the fertility rate is similar to the U.S.’s. For instance, the UN rates the US and Iceland as having virtually identical fertility rates<\/a> (the US is ranked 127, Iceland is ranked 128). But Iceland has the lowest infant mortality<\/a> rate in the world.<\/p>\n

There are countries which probably won’t be able to significantly lower infant mortality without lowering fertility rates — Niger, for example, which has about 7 births per woman, a number that’s way too high for health either of women or of children. But the US, with a fertility rate barely above 2 births per woman, is not in that situation. Because our high infant mortality rate isn’t being caused by a high fertility rate, we can lower infant mortality without lowering fertility.<\/p>\n

Finally, no one should discuss US infant mortality without pointing out the elephant in the room, which is race.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>(Graphic from PRB<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

In effect, whites, Asians and Latinas in the US are living in a reasonably good wealthy nation, when it comes to infant mortality — not as good as Sweden or the Netherlands, but the equivalent of New Zealand, say. But for Blacks and American Indians, it’s like living in an exceptionally poor nation — Tongo, say, or the Palestinian Territories.<\/p>\n

Research indicates that the difference isn’t genetic; it’s discrimination. From Science Daily<\/a>:<\/p>\n

They compared birth weights of three groups of women: African American, whites and Africans who had moved to Illinois. Most African-American women are of 70 to 75 percent African descent.<\/p>\n

“If there were such a thing as a (pre-term birth) gene, you would expect the African women to have the lowest birth weights,” David said. “But the African and white women were virtually identical,” with significantly higher birth weights than the African-American women, he said.
\nThe researchers did a similar analysis of births to black Caribbean women immigrants to the United States and found they gave birth to infants hundreds of grams heavier than the babies of U.S.-born black women.<\/p>\n

For black women, “something about growing up in America seems to be bad for your baby’s birth weight,” David said. […]<\/p>\n

David and Collins spoke with black women who had babies with normal weights at birth, comparing them with black women whose babies’ birth weight was very low — under three pounds.<\/p>\n

They asked the mothers if they had ever been treated unfairly because of their race when looking for a job, in an educational setting or in other situations.<\/p>\n

Those who felt discriminated against had a twofold increase in low birth weights. And for those who experienced discrimination in three “domains,” the increase was nearly threefold.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As depressing as this is, this also shows us that the US’s high infant mortality rate is — or should be — a solvable problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing to Mark Steyn, Mark Adomanis points out that the “infant mortality rate is significantly higher in the US than it is in the UK. In fact, if you want to be precise, it’s 34% higher.” Steyn replies: As to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion-reproductive-rights","category-race-racism-and-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}