Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Re: Population Data   [Mark Steyn]

Well, Andrew, since you ask . . .

I wasn't going to comment on Martin Walker's piece in part because, while the other Andrew — the excitable Head of Obstetrics over at The Atlantic — thinks it's some stunning refutation of America Alone (which I don't believe Mr. Sullivan has actually read), in fact dear old Martin echoes many of the points I make in my book — ie, China's demographic weakness (it "will get old before it gets rich", as I say), and the fact that, as I write in the very first chapter, "birth rates are falling all over the world."

What counts are the details. For example, Mr. Walker cites declining fertility in Turkey, which is true. But, as I pointed out in a column for NR a couple of years back and subsequently in a Corner post on "Young Turks," the short version of Turkish demographics is that Rumelian Turkey — ie, western, European, secular, Kemalist Turkey — has been outbred by Anatolian Turkey — ie, the eastern, rural, Islamic Turkey that's spilled out of its hinterland into the cities. Today's Kemalists are old Turks, and the (albeit comparatively moderate) Islamists are the last men standing, which is what matters in demography.

Obviously, my main point of disagreement with Mr. Walker is over the Islamization of Europe. He doesn't provide any serious evidence that ethnic European birthrates are increasing. Most Continental nations avoid compiling data on Muslim fertility, but Britain's Office of National Statistics reported in February that the Muslim population in the United Kingdom is increasing ten times faster than the general population. Walker writes:

Broadly speaking, birthrates among immigrants tend to rise or fall to the local statistical norm within two ­generations.

That's very "broadly speaking." The birth rates of Pakistani Britons declined in the Seventies but then went up again in the Eighties and Nineties. As Walker's own figures suggest, on the Continent immigrants from the Mahgreb have more babies than they would back in Tunisia and other North African countries. But let's take his general proposition: Hey, relax; it's just a problem for a couple of generations, no big deal. Okay:

If you have a million people, 90 percent of whom are ethnic European and 10 percent immigrant — and the 90 percent have a fertility rate of 1.3 kids per couple (the Euro average) and the 10 percent have a fertility rate of 3.5 (the Euro-Muslim estimate), the 90 percent will have 380,250 grandkids and the 10 percent will have 306,250. In other words, two generations are all they need to catch up. That's why cities from Malmo to Brussels are already on the brink of majority Muslim status, as government "Integration Ministers" implicitly acknowledge.

Where Mr. Walker gets remarkably incurious is when he coos:

Immigrant mothers account for part of the fertility increase throughout Europe, but only part.

Yes, but what part? Here's some more numbers. Let's say you have 950,000 ethnic Europeans whose fertility rate is 1.3. And 50,000 immigrants move in with a fertility rate of 3.5. You'd have an overall fertility rate increase to 1.41, or almost 10 percent, entirely due to a tiny segment of the population. In fact, if 900,000 ethnic Europeans' fertility rate declined from 1.3 to 1.2, but 100,000 immigrants with that 3.5 rate moved in, you'd still have a 10 percent increase in the overall fertility rate, even though 90 percent of the population has bought a one-way ticket on the Oblivion Express.

And that's before we consider the two other factors: Islam's numbers in Europe grow through births plus continuing high immigration plus a rapidly expanding rate of conversion.

Europe is growing more Muslim every day. We can debate the speed, but not the direction. I wouldn't pretend to Andrew Sullivan's expertise in Governor Palin's birth canal. But on my little hobby horse I think I'll stick with my thesis. I'd be happy to take him for falafel at my favorite restaurant in Amsterdam in 2025. And afterwards he can buy me a drink at his favorite gay bar. If he can find one.

05/05 12:56 AMShare