Assignment 3/ Reina Ferrufino

Religion for decades has been known as an influential institution in society. It is a well known notion that the Catholic Church does not support the notion of using contraception because they believe it is sinful. Consequently, it has become an assumption that there is a correlation with levels of reproduction and the percentage of Catholicism; if a country predominantly practices Catholicism it would be expected for the country to have high birth rates. I gathered data of Spain, Italy, Colombia, Bolivia, and Honduras all countries that predominantly practice Catholicism. I also looked at the average income, poverty level, and education level to control for other variables. Moreover, there were three other countries that served as an outgroup, China, Indonesia, and Iran.

I will list the following countries with high catholic views:

Honduras:

Religion: Roman Catholic 97%, Protestant 3%

Birth rate: 25.14 births/1,000 population

Unemployment rate: 5.1%

Population below poverty line: 65%

Literate population: 65%

Spain:

Religion: Roman Catholic: 94% Other: 6%

Reproduction: 10.66 births/1,000 population

Unemployment: 37.9%

Population under poverty line: 19.8%

Literarcy population: 97.9

Colombia:

Religions: Roman Catholic 90% other 10%

Reproduction: 7.49 births/1,000 population

Unemployment rate:11.8%

Population below poverty line: 45.5%

Bolivia:

Religions: Roman Catholic 95%, Protestant 5%

Birth rate: 24.71 births/1,000 population

Unemployment rate: 7.8% note:data are for urban areas; widespread underemployment

Population below poverty line: 30.3% . They have a note:based on percent of population living on less than the international standard of $2/day

Literate population: 86.7%

Italy:

Religions: Roman Catholic 90%, Other 10%

Birth Rate: 9.18 births/1,000 population

Unemployment Rate: 8.4%

Population below poverty line: N/A

Literacy population: 98.4%

The countries classified as the out-group have the following data:

China:

Religions: Officially Atheist, Buddhist, Christian 3%-4%, Muslim 1%-2%

Birth rate: 12.29 births/1,000 population

Unemployment rate: 6.1%

Population below poverty line: 2.8%: 21.5 million rural population live below the official "absolute poverty" line (approximately $90 per year); an additional 35.5 million rural population live above that level but below the official "low income" line (approximately $125 per year

Literacy population: 92,2%

Iran:

Religions: Muslim (official) 98% (Shia 89%, Sunni 9%), other (includes Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and Baha'i) 2%

Birth Rate: 18.55 births/1,000 population

Unemployment Rate: 13.2% Note: Data based from Government of Iran

Population below poverty line: 18%

Literacy Rate: 77%

Indonesia:

Religions: Muslim 86.1%, Protestant 5.7%, Roman Catholic 3%, Hindu 1.8%, other or unspecified 3.4%

Birth Rate: 18.1 births/1,000 population

Unemployment Rate: 7.1%

Population below poverty line: 13.33%

Literacy Rate: 90.4%

Based on this data there seems to be little correlation to the belief that countries that predominantly practice Catholicism have higher reproduction rate. However, Honduras and Bolivia for instance both fit into these correlation, nonetheless, Honduras is the second poorest country in Latin America and Bolivia is a developing country. They both might have what appears to be a correlation but one should take into consideration the high poverty rate and low literacy rate in comparison to other countries. On the other hand, non catholic countries like Indonesia, China, and Iran have higher birth rates than countries that predominantly practice Catholicism like Colombia, Spain, and Italy. Based on the data presented above, I do not believe there is a solid correlation between Catholicism and reproduction. If this was the case then, Italy, Colombia, and Spain would have high reproductive rates yet, the non catholic countries have higher reproduction rates. Although the correlation concept applies to Bolivia and Honduras there might be other alternative reasons such as high levels of poverty and lower levels of literacy. This might be a better explanation since Italy and Spain have high levels of literacy and are more developed countries and thus, do not usually have a high percentage of people living under the poverty line. If there is higher percentage of people not being able to have the basic subsistence of life for example, food, water, and shelter than, obtaining contraceptive might become more challenging. Although this seems as a plausible explanation, countries like Iran, China, and Indonesia seem to contradict the aforementioned statement, however demographics and cultural differences should also be accounted.