Lowest Fertility Countries Quiz

I don't love it. It's sad. The West is committing demographic suicide.

Gimme a break. The world is overpopulated whichever way you look at it.

When Malthus died world population was 1 billion, he thought the world was ending, come on; overpopulation is the boogeyman that never appears

Sure, Malthus massively over-exaggerated, but that doesn't mean it can't happen, or it isn't happening already. Look at the state of places like India and Nigeria. People have enough money to deal with it, but they don't.

It's not the shear number of people that is scary, but the heap of things they will need; oil, coal, natural gas, clean water, a Hyundai.

Malthus only faked his death so that he could assemble the Black Order and build the Infinity Gauntlet.

^^Thank god I’m not the only person who thinks that. We’ll need to create a team.

I had to look up Malthus - never heard of him. Then I realized he was my generation's Paul R. Ehrlich. Ehrlich's The Population Bomb and Alvin Toffler's Future Shock were required reading for "enlightened" college students in the early 1970s. I think Toffler's book has aged better than Ehrlich's though I see Ehrlich still defends his predictions that have yet to become true even though we're well beyond the 1980s.

Fertility rate is the amount of children, at birth, a woman born in the country is expected to produce in her lifetime. Nobody is born in the Vatican.

What Rust said. There are no births that take place in the Vatican. The country's only maternity hospital is located a few hundred meters away in Rome.

Becomes easy when you work out what area to focus on. I found Italy the most interesting- who woulda thought a country full of Catholics would make this list?

Religion plays a role for sure, but it's much less important than things like the economy, prosperity, education, availability of birth control and family planning, cost of living, literacy, and the types of jobs available (agrarian countries will have much higher birthrates than countries where the majority of people live in cities, or where good jobs require higher education and therefore investment of more family resources).

Here in Saudi Arabia where I live, people are still as Muslim as ever, but birth rates are falling sharply because of economic development, the rising cost of living, and the migration to cities.

The point HighFidelity was making regarding Italy was that Catholics consider it a sin to use birth control. It's not that birth control is not "available", it's that it's not (supposed to be) used. I'm guessing that Italian Catholics must treat that particular decree as more of a guideline than a strict rule.

Differently to what people think, northern Italy is a fully western advanced economy, as developed as Germany, France and the UK. But the image Italy has abroad still reflects the under-developed and overly catholic south, because it is the place where most immigrants, the mafia and pizza came from ;)

Isn't this what Furio got so pissed about?

15 isn't bad for me. I love this quiz! Although I'm annoyed at not getting Greece.

I think the problem is when the economy and stuff is set up so that women can't easily re-enter the workforce after raising their kids for a few years, so then they can't support a family financially, even with the husband's income. And that deters women from having children.

I would think that if it is hard for women to be employed it is more líkely they have kids. If it is in a country were that seems to be their only available role..

Is there a quiz for highest fertility?

yes

Whats up with the not including vatican thing?

Do you know how small the Vatican is? The information wouldn't even be relevant.

Actually it would rank first - it is the only country with a zero birth rate. So why has it been left out?

Let's get Dan Brown on this.

Very surprising that China isn't here. You know... with their one child policy and everything.

It's a pity all these people in the Slavic, Balkan, CIS/east European states aren't even reproducing enough to maintain their population. Some very good genes over there... at least in terms of aesthetic quality. A world with no Czech, Polish, Romanian or Hungarian girls would be impoverished indeed. Same goes for the Asian countries that make the top 4... also a very comely lot... but I suppose we have enough Japanese and Korean people to last a while. The population of Tokyo alone is greater than the total number of Magyars in the world.

When I hear comments saying that "aesthetically pleasing" people should be reproducing more, I feel uncomfortable. I know you didn't mean it this way, but I immediately thought of Hitler's master race of people with "good genes" and aesthetically pleasing blue eyes and blond hair - the Slavs didn't fair very well with the concept back then.

no accounting for taste I guess. Slavic women are the most beautiful in the world. But, don't worry, I will never have any political power.

He meant there should be good-looking girls for guys to look at (and possibly available for sex..)not sure that's such a great thing either. Like it is a mans right. And a girls job to be pretty, that s what we are there for right...

oh get lost. If I'd said the same about men you would stand up and applaud and nobody would have a single criticism about the comment.

I have very beautiful granddaughters but they each have special traits - some are funny, some athletic, some have kind hearts, all are very intelligent - of all those traits, "aesthetically pleasing" is the last one I would hope their future partners would think most important, and I hope it wouldn't be the first one on their own lists. That one should be how much money the men make and what kind of cars they drive. (Just kidding.)

Russian and Polish women are also some of the smartest and best educated I've encountered. But.... that doesn't mean we can't observe or appreciate their physical beauty. There's nothing at all wrong with that.

So?

Something else interesting about these figures... if you go to the wikipedia page on population projections into the future and look in the talk section, there are some really thick people there trying to say that the numbers are made up for political reasons. They interpret it as some kind of insult to say that a country has a declining population. I find this incredibly ironic since, really, if you look at all the data the countries with sharply rising populations are the ones that have the most poverty, illiteracy, unskilled workers, and underdeveloped economies. Having a low fertility rate is a good thing. It usually means people in that country have a high quality of life, are well-educated, and appreciate the impact that their reproductive decisions have on themselves and the world in general. It could also be a sign of a stagnant economy or poor outlook on life- but still, I'd rather live in Eastern Europe than Sub-Saharan Africa.

7/22 :(

Some surprising data! Why not taking one of mine? Leave a comment too! :)

13/20 . A good score for me

Easy: I simply guessed each of the Asian Tigers and then every country in Europe. Finished with 2:30 left.

ITS MISSING CHINA!!!!!!! such laws forbid their woman to do so!

Ex-communist countries... since them planing their families

If the quiz didn't have the caveat saying that, then yes, the Vatican would be at 0.00

It's amazing how the top two countries on the list are in the bottom four in the stats. (I'm not saying I got them; I didn't.)

I'm willing to bet the Vatican would have won, although I'm sure a few of those cardinals have some secrets.

Good Lord, we, Slavs, are really dying out...

My parents originated from Romania and when I visited the country last year most people had 2-3 kids. Which was surprising because usually poorer countries have more kids.

Fertility is quite different from birthrate. I can be fertile like a bunny rabbit, but choose not to act upon it and remaining happy & childless. Therefore birthrate tells very little about actual fertility, except if they really are all medically infertile.

That's not what "fertility rate" means in a geographical context.

Overpopulation is the greatest problem for the future. Any country that keeps its population down will anyway be eventually swamped by people from overcrowded countries. The Earth does not have enough resources to constantly find an increasing amount. We can all play the ostrich game and stick our heads in the sand but there is no denying that too many people at present are going without just the bare essentials at 7+ Billion. At 8 Billion, 9 Billion ......... 10 Billion etc. The human race will be in a heap of trouble.

But these countries have below replacement rate fertility, which will present a multitude of problems for them, such as 1 in 4 Japanese will be over 65.

I hardly got any for the longest time and then I got south korea, taiwan, and singapore. Then I just started guessing in Europe and got them all with 0:29 to spare!

i had already wasted half of my time trying to input the microcountries of the world before i realized i was doing it completely wrong and that most of them were in central asia/ the balkans. interesting...

oh, and why isn't china on here?

They told us the same thing in junior high, and we girls were to stay far away from any red-blooded male, Italian or otherwise. :)

If they would have more than 0.0 heads would roll

At this rate (and with zero immigration), Singapore will be empty of people in 358 years.

Should be titled "Countries with best Contraception"

I don’t think Poland is known for having friendly abortion laws.

Wow, I tried all countries in Europe (except Luxembourg and Liechtenstein) but Poland!

What are the fertility rates in Monaco and San Marino?

If we're using the source for the quiz, Monaco is 1.53 and San Marino is 1.50.

Okay, interesting, somewhat higher than I thought.

Why so many Slavic countries? Where is Mother Russia to help us?

Poor countries often have poor education systems and widespread ignorance and religiosity, in addition to low standards of living and bad healthcare systems which all combine to produce very high birth rates. However, in Eastern Europe, while most of the countries are relatively poor and the standards of living are relatively low, they also have reasonably high standards for education and healthcare. This produces a population with a low standard of living that is aware of their lot and less interested in reproducing, subjecting their offspring to the same. At the same time they are more aware of and have better access to effective birth control.

Just a theory. There's also widespread alcoholism, depression, and a lot of economic migration which has led to large gender imbalances.

These are not the estimates for 2020?! https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/356rank.html

Wasn't there a report recently that said that birth rates were falling basically everywhere outside sub-Saharan Africa? And even in Africa, I'm predicting that sometime in the next few decades birth rates will start falling with more development, increased education, and wider access to birth control.

In less than a century, it's estimated Africa will have 5x the population of Europe. We will start to see the mass emigration into Europe/North America/Arabian Peninsula just to fill the needs of their existing societies. We will all be the same color at some point :)

That does not make me happy and I'm not talking about the colour. Im talking about the culture what these people take with them to Europe. It will ruin the European peoples and their cultures.

According to their own studies, around half of the Vatican population have tried real hard with each other and some random dudes in thematic bars in Rome, but the holy spirit has refused to appear. It must be the end of times.

Got every one except Singapore, the most prodigiously infertile country of all, apparently. Odd to run the table with the exception of the top answer.