The level of Polish migration to Ireland has been remarkable since 2004. I’ve met Poles who came here to learn English and were stymied because everywhere they went for employment and whatnot the only other people working there were Polish. However, AFAIK, a significant number of migrants have already returned to Poland with money saved from working here, partly because times are better at home, and also because the Irish economy has imploded.
Ugh, this is tiresome, probably why I don’t stray into GD too much. Anyway, saying that TFR is dropping in European countries is not an argument, it is a statement of fact, one that I have acknowledged in every post I made in this thread so far. The implications of this fact are not that all of Europe will look like Hoyerswerda, and they are not quite disastrous enough to warrant speaking of European demographics as a ‘population crash’.
The problem is we have immigration to wealthy nations, but once developing nations reach a certain level of wealth (around $5000 per capita), their TFR drops to replacement levels or below too. And more and more countries reach that threshold all the time. So immigration can only delay the massive demographic changes the world is undergoing. The wealthy west can pull people from Africa or Asia, but once those areas reach a certain baseline of GDP their TFRs will fall below replacement levels too. So within 60 years this is going to be a global problem. There will be too few kids and too many elderly virtually everywhere.
There actually is a reverse brain drain though. It is due to a variety of factors. Job and entrepreneur prospects are better at home than in the US, so people are getting educations and then going back home.
There have been some increases in Eastern European countries recently. Overall, countries need to make it easier for educated women to be able to take time out to have children (paid parental leave, day care subsidies etc).
http://congenialtimes.blogspot.com/2009/11/twilight-of-secular-europe-maybe-maybe.html
They do try to do that. Populations seem to have different average levels of ability for education though. That’s another reason low fertility in Asian or European countries is bad news. They’re the only ones that have average iq of 100 or more. If they decline it will be bad news for all countries.
Here’s a table of TFR in the 27 EU countries plus 6 others from 1997-2008 by Eurostat.
Fertility rate is increasing in the majority of countries, and Ireland and Iceland have reached replacement levels in 2008
What your cite says basically is that 60% of Chinese Science students are staying. 45% of Indians. So really your cite doesn’t say that we are experiencing reverse brain drain at all. What it says is that a proportion of those students return to their countries, which ultimately is a good thing because it will advance science and expand the possibilities for science grads worldwide. For it to be brain drain we’d have to see our students leaving, and very few of the foreign students staying. We aren’t seeing that. It also, doesn’t acknowledge what the relative number of students that come to America for that purpose are.
If people immigrate from somewhere else, it stands to reason that there were too many people there. So immigration is a net benefit all around; countries in need of people gain some, and countries with too many people ease their burden a bit. Otherwise, the immigration wouldn’t be happening! The only thing left is this “Oh my god, the culture will change!!” bullshit.
Cultures constantly change all the time. As long as it isn’t at the point of a sword or the muzzle of a rifle, it’s all good. Can you meaningfully say that the “Western” culture of 100 years ago is still around, but that Muslim immigration will totally destroy it? King Edward and Archduke Ferdinand would be sickened by the current “Western” culture with or without Islamic influence. It is purely xenophobia to be afraid of another culture when nobody is forcing you to conform to it.
Its all well and good to talk about the values of tolerance, but the Muslim population in Western Europe isn’t always integrating well. I don’t know tons about it, but I thought there were problems with concepts like womens rights, children’s rights, religious rights, honor killings, etc.
Western concepts (secularism, democracy, individualism and individual liberty) are valid concepts people should be free to uphold.
And I don’t think people immigrate because of there being too much or too little population, most seems to be about economics or desire to escape persecution.
Howso? For those of us who enjoy secularism, women’s rights, minority rights, freedom of speech, there is a worry that immigration by people who do not have those same values (and who feel comfortable forcing them on others) could lead to problems.
How many women, non-believers and minorities are forced to do and behave in ways they do not want to by certain Islamist sectors? That is the problem. If there were a subset of Muslims who had authoritarian attitudes towards women and minorities, but all of those women and minorities made a voluntary decision to accept that treatment and understood that they have other options, that would be fine. But my impression is that is not the case.
In the US, I am also offended by the christian right which does the same thing. They want to deny rights to gay people and women. Its one thing when certain gays or women voluntarily choose to give up their rights. But the christian fundamentalists want to forcibly take those rights away from them. Its not the same thing. So I try to keep the christian fundamentalists out of power in my particular sphere of politics.
I don’t think that is xenophobia. When you have an authoritarian subgroup whose values are different from yours who you have valid reason to feel would prefer to force others to live under their values (w/o their consent), then that is a problem.
Then again as a liberal I support certain authoritarian measures myself. I feel private industry should be regulated whether it wants to be or not as an example.
Certain values like secularism, individualism, individual liberty, scientism, modernity etc need to be defended because they made the world we live in possible. If people can immigrate w/o attacking those values, then go for it.
Yeah, when Muslims in Europe persecute women and institute Sharia law, I’m right behind you in denouncing it. So far, no country in Europe has attacked “secularism, individualism, individual liberty, scientism, modernity”. And no one has even suggested that the culture is heading in that direction. I would suggest otherwise; that most Muslim immigrants are moving in order to take advantage of those values, not in opposition to them. So far, the only attacks on those values come from European governments themselves, banning veils and minarets. Basically, your defense is a strawman, because Muslims aren’t forcing their culture on Europeans, in fact quite the opposite. So again, when no one is forcing you to adhere to their culture, it is purely xenophobia to be afraid of it. On the other hand, European Muslims look to have good reasons to be afraid of “Western” culture and its tendency towards religious bigotry.
Consider for instance the fact that Britain has allowed Sharia law courts to operate which tend to give settlements in favour of the husband.
I am against this. However, it is simply another form of voluntary arbitration and no one is being forced by the government to submit to Sharia law in the UK. People may be forced into it by their husbands or their mosques, which is why I disagree with it, but you cannot point to it as an example of Muslim culture forcing itself on Westerners.
The fact that politicians approved of it makes it at least partially so.
You are aware, I hope, that there is no hard scientific evidence of any hereditary intelligence differential between different “racial” groups however defined. (I’ve run GD threads on this question and nobody could come up with any. If you’ve got some, bring it. But The Bell Curve doesn’t pass muster.)
:dubious: Erm, no it doesn’t, Curtis. The authorities saying, “Go ahead, you guys can solve disputes among yourself by your own traditions instead of going to our courts” is not even partially “an example of Muslim culture forcing itself on Westerners.”
Europe managed to survive a population crash from the Black Plague and two World Wars. I’m sure it will be fine.
I’m aware that the relevant gene alleles haven’t been identified so you can’t as of yet compare their distribution across populations. However, as William Saletan pointed out last year, “research is constantly finding new gene-trait correlations and group differences.” This point is also explained by Phycisist Steve Hsu who discusses recent genome change and different clusters. Information Processing: "No scientific basis for race"
Also, see the research by the likes of Scott Williamson, Bruce Lahn or Benjamin Voight showing recent selection of certain genes that appear involved in neurological function in some way (DAB1, ASPM-MCPH1, SLC6A4). They’re not related to intelligence but those are just early findings and it suggests that the brain isn’t off limits to recent change.
In terms of current arguments the environmental explanations like socioeconomic differences, or cultural differences were examined in the June 2005 in the journal Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. There’s a lot of indirect evidence from adoption studies, reaction time measures, brain size data and so on which suggests the differences are partly heritable. You can read the various papers here. www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/ -
The paper on Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence is also interesting in showing how selection could work over a relatively short period.
http://homepage.mac.com/harpend/.Public/AshkenaziIQ.jbiosocsci.pdf
FTW.
Also consider…
People today are generally healthier and more energetic for longer in their lives. They don’t get worn out young from hard manual labour, and we have better health care. So a rising proportion of 65+ year-olds is not necessarily a problem.
Each worker today is more productive than the worker of 20, 50, 100 years previously, due to improved technology. So again it doesn’t matter so much if we have more elderly people to support - we also have a greater capacity to support them.
At least some of the fertility-rate decline in high-density developed countries is due to the population pressure itself - people not having more children because they simply don’t have the living space to fit them in. Obviously an actual decline in population would alleviate some of that pressure.
Not to mention the fact that at some point, the world does have to bite the bullet and cease increasing population. Not necessarily now. 6 billion may be the limit. Maybe its 12 billion, maybe 20 billion. But a stable or decreasing population is not necessarily anything to be frightened of. It’s just different.
A work force that can’t support the European social democratic system is something to be worried about.