Talk:Income and fertility

message: I gather from WP:NPOV that there should be a general consensus before an NPOV tag is removed. As the article stands I don't see any  controversial claims and therefore the NPOV dispute seems to be resolved. Since no mention is made of eugenics, the most recent dispute in this discussion must certainly be resolved. Anyone object to removing the NPOV tag? Featherlessbiped (talk) 06:42, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The neutrality of this article is not bad right now, and I support removing the NPOV tag. It's no worse than many other untagged articles. It's still incomplete, confusing, and misleading at points, but these aren't neutrality concerns.--Yannick (talk) 01:39, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have removed the NPOV tag, moved the consequences section to the end and elucidated the introduction. I agree that this article needs a substantial amount of work, I think the changes I have made to the intro make it slightly less vague.Featherlessbiped (talk) 07:50, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV tag? 

message: The article states:
This suggests that the demographic-economic paradox applies more strongly in Catholic countries, although Catholic fertility started to fall when the liberalizing reforms of Vatican II were implemented.
The teaching of the Catholic Church both before the Council and at present is that abstinence is the only valid form of birth control.
For the paradox to apply to Catholics, it would seem that either:
* disobedience to Catholic teaching increases with wealth
* abstinence increases with wealth, among Catholics
Since the number of consecrated celibates has fallen in these countries, the first seems to be the explanation?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jogomu (talk • contribs) 22:28, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion / Catholic 

message: I think Fertility-development controversy should be merged to Demographic-economic paradox, since they appear to have basically the same scope. The latter seems to be the one more commonly used, so it should probably be the target. Mikael Häggström (talk) 18:39, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Mikael Häggström (talk) 17:33, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge 

message: Putting aside some other problems with this article, is this really referred to as a "paradox", extensively, in the literature? Paradox is something which is self-contradictory. This is simply illustrating the fact that Malthus was wrong.Volunteer Marek (talk) 09:03, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: You might have a point that the article title is not so good, but the appropriate solution to that is to move it or merge it. This phrase and concept was popularized in a book by Mark Steyn, America Alone, in 2006, and it was repeated in other sources such as . This attention has thankfully waned over the years, the material is still in public discussion under different names. This isn't original research. Someone suggested merging to Fertility-development controversy, which would be better than deletion, though I wonder if the "controversy" phrase shows up any more than the "paradox" phrase. Maybe it could be merged into America Alone, since that seems to have been the dominant idea that spread out of that book. Another possible merge target might be Sub-replacement fertility.--Yannick (talk) 02:15, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: That source does use the term "demographic-economic paradox" once - but it's not really enough to hang a whole article on. Of course, any of the info here, if it's properly sourced can be included in other articles. But there's no indication that this particular article merits... an article.VolunteerMarek 03:03, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: As an article covering the association between wealth and fertility, I think it's notable enough to merit an article. However, it needs to be named accordingly, and therefore I suggested a move as per below. Mikael Häggström (talk) 17:53, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Paradox"? 

message: Some admittedly cursory searching suggests that the original term was "Demo-economic paradox", coined by Herwig Birg. That fact, if confirmed, should be included.
Some additional sources which should be considered:
* 1981 Book—
* 2006 Book—
* 1995 Book—
--SPhilbrick(Talk) 13:00, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additional sources 

message: Dr. Peeters has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:
We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.
Dr. Peeters has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:
*Reference : Peeters, Marga, 2011. "Demographic pressure, excess labour supply and public-private sector employment in Egypt - Modelling labour supply to analyse the response of unemployment, public finances and welfare," MPRA Paper 31101, University Library of Munich, Germany.
ExpertIdeas (talk) 15:05, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dr. Peeters's comment on this article 

message: Hello! I am very interested and intrigued about the correlation between income and fertility, so I would like to help contribute and add more information to develop more to this article! Below I have attached some sources and further topics to that could be added to the Wikipedia article. I am eager to hear what you have to say about my feedback and please let me know what could be improved. That would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! Kailynriedel (talk) 23:49, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contributions for Income and Fertility  

message: In April of this year (2018) a new editor,  Kailynriedel,  entered a series of edits to this article.  According to their account, s(he) at the time was apparently a student at the U. of Colorado and taking a course in Wikipedia editing.   My guess is that what they did was part of that course.
 
First of all, Kailynriedel, bravo for anyone who wants to study Wikipedia editing, more power to you.  Wikipedia needs a steady stream of new editors who are willing to take up the cause and add value to this encyclopedia.  You have apparently done everything right so far: practiced with a sandbox and discussed your approach on this talk page.
Having said that, I have a few, hopefully helpful, comments on these additions.
  
1. Start with the additions to the lead section.
“Many countries are experiencing a rather weak correlation with income and fertility within a given household. Families with a higher income produce a lower number of children resulting in a low fertility rate whereas families with lower income produce more children with a higher fertility rate.” 
:I think that the point of the reference article is that there are examples of families bearing more children when their income rises, e.g. when a family’s home value rises, not less as you state.   
:Quoting from the referenced article: “Two recent papers have identified such natural experiments, and both contradict the assumption that richer people have fewer kids. Rather, in the situations they studied, when families have more money, they have more children.”
:Plus, this reference cites only two examples where this is true, and they are both in the US, so stating that “many countries” are showing this result is, I think, overstating this contrary finding. 
:Also, I think this is better placed in the “Contrary findings” section rather than in the lead section.  See this article on the Lead Section: 
::https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section
::A quote from this article: “The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies.”
“Total fertility rate is specifically the number of children who would be born per woman if she were to pass through the childbearing years bearing children according to a current schedule of age-specific fertility rates.”
:The second line of the lead section contains the word “fertility” and is highlighted.  Placing the cursor on that word produces a definition of total fertility rate and a link to the article discussing that.  That article contains the definition you are repeating here.  So, is your copying out the definition really necessary?  Does it add value? 
 
“In developing or less developed countries, families need their children for labor and for economic support in the future. Many countries do not have proper pension policies, children are needed in order for the parents to have financial support in their old age.”
:This may be true, but there is no reference for this statement, so it does not conform to Wikipedia standards.  Furthermore, and this is a general comment, this article is about the relationship between income and fertility.  The pension factor, presence or lack of a public pension, might be outside the subject of this article and better treated in the Fertility factor (demography) article.  See this section in that article:
 	Other factors associated with decreased fertility
::•	 Generosity of public pensions. It has been theorized that social security systems decrease the incentive to have children to provide security in old age.[1]
2. Additions to the Paradox section
In the Paradox section, starting with "Scientist [sic] called it the "demographic economic ..." 
:you list causes that should belong in the "Causes and related factors" section.  Plus, I could argue that this article is about the relationship between fertility and income, and the "causes" cited have little to do with that topic.  
Plus, the picture of Malthus and the comment on where he lived is also a duplicate from the article on him.
3. Additions to Causes and related factors section
"Gross domestic product stands for GDP, which is the total dollar ..."  
:I think should be other way around (i.e. GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product) plus GDP is defined by the link in the lead section.  Is it necessary to repeat that definition here?  The rest of the para discusses GDP and would probably be better included in the article on GDP.
“It is argued then that the poorer individuals have fewer children so that they can obtain more of other types of consumer goods. The wealthier, on the other hand, are able to obtain the consumer goods which they desire as well as to have more children.
:Argued by whom?  No reference for these statements.
“Generally, Developed country countries have a lower fertility rate while a less economic developed country has a higher fertility rate.
:This is a re-statement of the third sentence in the lead section and is the general theme of this article.  Is it necessary to repeat that here?
“You will find that in Japan a more developed country, the GDP of $32,600 in 2009 was 1.22 children born per woman. But in Ethiopia a GDP of $900 in 2009 was 6.17 children born per woman.
:These are good examples of what this article is discussing.
“The reason for more developed countries to have a lower fertility rate is because of the high standard of living which is expensive and in order to achieve that, they focus more on education rather than having a large family. Educated women and low mortality rate for children equals a smaller family and more self-centered people.
:I think that these points have already been covered.  Is it necessary to repeat them?
The United States Census Bureau is a fundamental and critical data collection tool that is used specifically in demography. Censuses are a count of the population and not considered a sample. Since the end of World War II, the United Nations has encouraged all countries to take a census.
:How is this para connected to the subject of income and fertility?
“Another way to look at it is through the demographic transition model to which was designed in 1929 by demography Warren Thompson who classified countries into three major groups. Number one being high births rates and high but declining death rates, number two was the decline of birth rates and death rates (death rates dealing faster) and number three was the rapid decline in birth death rates (birth rates decline faster).
:How is this para connected to the subject of income and fertility?
I hope that you and other Wikipedians find these comments useful. Joe Bfsplk (talk) 21:05, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Seeing that there is no response from Kailynriedel, I think you're free to edit the article as you prefer. Mikael Häggström (talk) 17:15, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some comments on previous edits 

message: Why there is almost no mention of very strong correlation (much stronger than GDP) between increase in female economic opportunities and empowerment and decrease in fertility? This would fully explain the 'paradox' as there might be no direct relationship between income and fertility, rather they both correlate to human development.
Here is good study on it if anyone is willing to including this in the article, I am not sure if this qualifies as reliable source:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43488406?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.198.149.35 (talk) 01:56, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relationship between female economic opportunities and/or empowerment and declining fertility