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Islamism, Religiosity and Fertility in the Muslim world

Islamism, Religiosity and Fertility in the Muslim world. Eric Kaufmann, Birkbeck College, University of London/Belfer Center, Kennedy School, Harvard e.kaufmann@bbk.ac.uk. Religiosity. Affiliation/Denomination (Do you consider yourself a member of…) Attendance (How often do you attend?)

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Islamism, Religiosity and Fertility in the Muslim world

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  1. Islamism, Religiosity and Fertility in the Muslim world Eric Kaufmann, Birkbeck College, University of London/Belfer Center, Kennedy School, Harvard e.kaufmann@bbk.ac.uk

  2. Religiosity • Affiliation/Denomination (Do you consider yourself a member of…) • Attendance (How often do you attend?) • Religiosity (Are you a religious person?) • Religious Traditionalism (Belief in Hell, Devil, Bible as word of God) Different studies use one or more of these measures

  3. Religiosity and Fertility "One of the most central injunctions of virtually all traditional religions is to strengthen the family, to encourage people to have children, to encourage women to stay home and raise children, and to forbid abortion, divorce, or anything that interferes with high rates of reproduction." (Norris and Inglehart 2004)

  4. Second Demographic Transition Theory • van de Kaa 1987; Surkyn and Lesthaeghe 2004 • Lestaheghe and Neidert 2006 Thesis: As societies modernize, religiosity becomes a more important determinant of fertility

  5. Studies on Religiosity and Fertility • Adsera 2004 on Spain between 1985 and 1999 • Also finding a link: Lehrer 1996; Berghammer, Philipov, and Sobotka 2006; Kaufmann 2007, 2008 • Mixed Results: Westoff and Jones (1979); Frejka and Westoff 2006

  6. Religious Traditionalism and Fertility • Fargues (2000) and Berman (2000) on ultra-Orthodox Jews • Hout, Wilde and Greeley (2001) on Evangelical Protestants; Sherkat (2001) on Mormons and Hispanic Catholics • Berman and Stepanyan (2003) on Madrassa-attending Muslims • Little else on Islamism

  7. Source: ‘The Moment of Truth’, Ha’aretz, 8 February 2007

  8. Decline of Liberal Protestants

  9. Based on affiliation (ie baptism for Christians) • Applying affiliation data to country demographic projections

  10. Religiosity and Fertility in Muslim Countries, 2000 Egypt Bangladesh Nigeria Iran Morocco Tanzania Uganda Pakistan Azerbaijan '95-97 Jordan Indonesia Turkey Bosnia Albania 2000 Albania '95-97 Algeria Source: 2000 WVS and World Bank.

  11. Is Islam Different? Most Muslim countries more conformist in religious terms (ie fewer seculars, less switching) Second Demographic Transition More Muted Puritanical Islam associated with cities, vs. rural heterodoxy/folk religion

  12. Islamism and Fertility ‘Our country has a lot of capacity. It has the capacity for many children to grow in it…Westerners have got problems. Because their population growth is negative, they are worried and fear that if our population increases, we will triumph over them.’ – Mahmoud Ahmadinedjad, 2006 ‘You people are supporting…the enemies of Islam and Muslims...Personnel were trained to distribute family planning pills. The aim of this project is to persuade the young girls to commit adultery’ – Taliban Council note to murdered family planning clinic employee, Kandahar, 2008

  13. But Islamism shows significant individual-level effects Source: WVS 1999-2000. N = 2796 respondents in towns under 10,000 and 1561 respondents in cities over 100,000. Asked in Algeria, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Egypt.

  14. European Islam: A Reflection of Things to Come? Source: Westoff and Frejka 2007

  15. Conclusions: Fertility • At the individual level, religiosity and Islamism predict higher fertility • At the country level, no compositional effects are evident • Evidence for SDT effect in more 'modern' contexts, i.e. Cities • We would expect a sharpened SDT effect with modernization • Islamist population growth in Muslim settings appears to be a long-term process, unlike Israel, thus unlikely to affect politics until after 2050

  16. Future Research: projections of religious and Islamist populations for Muslim world, Europe, North America • Own project: http://www.sneps.net/RD/religdem.html • IIASA projections project: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/~terama/Relig.html

  17. Having an Islamic government, where religious authorities have absolute power ARDA Youth, Emotional Energy, and Political Violence: The Cases of Egypt and Saudi Arabia Survey, 2005

  18. Sharia as Law of Land and Desirable Fertility in the Country ARDA Youth, Emotional Energy, and Political Violence: The Cases of Egypt and Saudi Arabia Survey, 2005

  19. Source: Turkish National Statistics 2007, and own calculations.

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