Thread by @lymanstoneky

So, the YouGov survey that UNFPA based a lot of its 2023 State of World Population Report on helpfully has the toplines posted here: docs.cdn.yougov.com/xn0kwsbzum/UNF…

You might think that "being worried about low fertility" is associated with "being worried about loss of traditional culture" or "being worried about the rise of specific ethnic groups."

But across the 8 countries UNFPA/YouGov surveyed, that's not the case. No correlation!

By far the most "worried about fertility" country surveyed was Japan--- but it ALSO had the lowest rate of particularistic concerns!

On the other hand, France had BY FAR the highest rate of particularistic concerns--- yet rather little worry about low birth rates!

The question specifically asks about birth rates in your country.

https://twitter.com/octal/status/1658845095880171520

Turning to immigration, the correlation also isn't super strong, but is at least positive: countries with more people who say immigration is too high do have somewhat higher particularistic concerns. FWIW, raw R values are -0.21 for fertility concern, +0.55 for immigration.

You might wonder: are "fertility is too low" and "immigration is too high" correlated with each other?

In these 8 countries, no. R value of -0.21 as well. Countries worried about "low fertility" do NOT tend to be countries worried about "high immigration."

They also asked if people though the national fertility increasing/decreasing would have pos/neg/neutral/don't know impacts on society. In Hungary and Japan, people strongly believe higher fertility would be good, lower fertility bad. In Brazil, the reverse. US/France neutral.

Quick remind: Brazil and India both have BELOW REPLACEMENT fertility. AND they have fertility lower than what INDIVIDUALS say would be ideal for them. And yet, people say they think higher fertility would have bad SOCIETAL effects.

The logical interpretation is Brazilians and Indians believe that fertility has big NEGATIVE externalities. What might those be? In Brazil, distinctively common concerns were slums/sprawl, inequality, racism, labor shortages, AND job competition.

In India, unusually common concerns were environmental worries, slums and sprawl, job competition, and "policies about family size." For the record, this question is very badly worded from UNFPA, so it's hard to interpret what any of these worries actually mean.

For the record, the distinctive worries in Hungary are population decline, labor shortages, changes to wages, loss of human rights, higher cost of living, and inequality. The distinctive worries in Japan are population decline, labor shortages, changes to wages, war, disaster.

By the way, the R value between my Net-Net pos/neg impact measure and "fertility is too low" is 0.97 (!!!!). Respondents who said "fertility is too low" almost PERFECTLY correlate with respondents who say it'd be good if fertility rose and bad if it fell.

Which, DUH, but the point is, the low correlations linking particularism and low fertility are NOT because of low correlations across all variables. When there's a real connection, it shows up.

Some very badly worded questions here, but still kinda interesting from a vibes point of view. Do you think having kids generally/having more kids/having fewer kids is encouraged/discouraged? More/fewer *than what* isn't specified, alas.

And of course "encouraged by whom" is also a big question here. And here's the Net-Net. Countries where people think more kids are most encouraged are: Hungary and Japan. Countries where FEWER kids are most encouraged are: Egypt, India, Nigeria.

"Egypt, India, and Nigeria are extremely antinatal cultural environments" is a #take

okay i'm sorry I can't even with these questions.

"How good or bad would you say the following are in your country?
... financial incentives for smaller families
... financial incentives for larger families"
Range: Very good to very bad

This question is impossible to interpret

Are people saying, "It is good that we have financial incentives for larger families?" or "Small families do not get good incentives" or "It would be good IF we had financial incentives"?

Just abysmal question wording. Who on earth designed this thing.

The detailed statement on the survey doesn't give details on how much was UNFPA mangling it vs. YouGov mangling it. The full report does name a a consultant who wrote about the YouGov data but it's not clear if she designed the survey. A YouGov staffer is thanked for expertise.

I won't be a dick and tag or name especially since there's no way to know who's responsible for what. And look, we've all been there. We've all designed a survey then realized afterwards a question was double barrelled or something.

My worst one was one time I designed a survey to study how something linked to subjective wellbeing... then didn't notice the actual subjective wellbeing question had accidentally been removed from the survey by the data vendor. Huge yikes! I get it!

At the same time, I am not the United Nations. The entire world does not like to me for top-shelf expert guidance on population questions. I am just a dude. Whose PhD is in how to ask people questions about their population-related attitudes.

(also for longtime followers, yes, that's basically what my PhD is about)

also looking thru the authors now, several of the "External" authors are.... current employees of UNFPA? And several were employees within the last 5 years? This seems not *quite* as external as one usually means by the word external.

seems like of the 8 externals, in fact 4 of them are not current or very-recent-past UNFPA employees. just very weird. what is the point of listing in that way???

(the other 4 do include some very good and eminent demographers whose work is, appropriately, heavily cited throughout!)