Assignment #3

Jonathan Deniol Rodriguez

For this assignment I chose to look at six countries in Northern, Central, and Southern America. I examined a countries primary religion, their birth rate, fertility rate, population growth rate, the life expectancy, and the unemployment rate amongts the 15-24 year old age bracket. Prior to examining these rates, I theorize that countries with large Catholic populations have birth rates which reflect an absence of birth control measures.

HONDURAS
Catholic - 97%
Birth Rate - 25.14/1000
Fertility Rate - 3.09 children/woman
Population Growth Rate - 1.888%
Life Expectancy- 70.61 years
Unemployment (ages 15-24)- 7%

BRAZIL
Catholic - 73.60
Birth Rate- 17.79/1000
Fertility Rate- 2.18 children/woman
Population Growth- 1.134%
Life Expectancy- 72.53 years
Unemployment (ages 15-24) - 17.8%

MEXICO
Catholic- 76.5%
Birth Rate- 19.13/1000
Fertililty Rate- 2.29 children/woman
Population Growth- 1.102%
Life Expectancy - 76.47 years
Unemployment (ages 15-24)- 10%

COSTA RICA
Catholic- 76.3%
Birth Rate- 16.54/1000
Fertility Rate- 1.93 children/woman
Population Growth - 1.308%
Life Expectancy- 77.72 years
Unemployment (ages 15-24)- 11%

CUBA
Catholic - 85%
Birth Rate- 9.99/1000
Fertility Rate - 1.44 children/woman
Population Growth- (-0.104%)
Life Expectancy-77.7 years
Unemployment (ages 15-24)- 3.1%

ARGENTINA
Catholic- 92%
Birth Rate-17.54/1000
Fertiltiy Rate- 2.31 children/woman
Population Growth- 1.017%
Life Expectancy- 76.95 years
Unemployment (ages 15-24) - 21.2%

outgroup

GREECE
Birth Rate- 9.21 births/1000
Fertility Rate-1.38 children/woman
Population Growth-0.083%
Life Expectancy-79.92 years
Unemployment (ages 15-24) - 25.8%

TURKEY
Birth Rate- 17.93 births/1000
Fertility Rate- 2.15 children/woman
Population Growth- 1.235%
Life Expectancy- 72.5 years
Unemployment (ages 15-24) - 25.3%

EGYPT
Birth Rate- 24.63 births/1000
Fertility Rate- 2.97 children/woman
Population Growth- 1.96%
Life Expectancy- 72.66 years
Unemployment- 24.8%

CONCLUSION --> The first six countires, those with high rates of Catholicism show high birth rates. The exception being Cuba which actually had a negative population growth. Both Honduras and Argentina, two countries with high rates of Catholicism demonstrate high birth rates. Population growth, birth rate, and levels of Catholicism appear to be correlated. Non-Catholic countries showed a large level of unemployment, but only Egypt and Turkey had high brith rates. Greece's birth rate is relatively low compared to all the other countries. Their life expectancy is pretty high, having the highest amongst all the countries observed. It's interesting to see that they have the lowest birth rate, and highest life expectancy.
Regardless of religion, almost all of these countries seem to have a growing population rate.

It's interesting comparing countries from North, Central and South America to countries in Europe and the Middle East. Clearly the religions are completely different. Catholicism seems to have a strong correlation with the birth rate amongst the first six countries, but as the non-Catholic countries show, it isn't the only factor that impacts birth rates.