Alberto Monteiro wrote:
>Steve Sloan wrote:
>>
>> Assuming most of the immigrants become reasonably well-off and
>> integrated into their new country in a generation or two, their
>> birth rates are likely to start falling for exactly the same
>> reasons that the native Dutch birth rates are falling now.
>>
>It depends on whether they keep their original culture or
>get assimilated. This is the problem that caused the
>Kosovo War: back in the 20s, there was a minority of
>muslims of albanian ancestry, and a majority of serbians.
>But - even though they had the same wealth, as Yugoslavia
>was a commie country - the albanians had 10+ kids per couple,
>while the serbians has 2-.
Ah, yes, this reminds me of the point I've been missing:
What's with this assumption that a country that reaches our exalted
first-world status will cease having lots of kids, anyway? I understand
the basic arguement- had to have lots of kids to support the parents,
agriculture-based society, et cetera... but there are now other, possibly
more pressing and certainly less dismissable reasons that people have
lots of children. What if, in your culture, it is an affermation of your
masculinity/femininity to have lots of children, and with few children
you are not respected? What if your religion holds children to be sacred
and/or has taboos against birth control, abortion, and the like?
While I'm on the subject of assumptions, what exactly is a "first-world
country" anyway? This has been bothering me for a while. I know the
origins of the term were in the Cold War, where democracies or
pseudo-democracies were categorized as First World, communist or
socialist countries as Second World, and everybody else as Third World,
but that certainly doesn't seem to be the sense it's being used in now.
Are we basing this on some sort of economic viability? In that case China
is first-world, since last time I checked they were doing pretty well on
the economic front; but China seems to be catagorized as third-world, so
that can't be right. Maybe it's based on human condition, which cuts
China out, but if so why is the solution for bringing "third-world"
countries into the "first world" considered to be an economic one?
Somebody explain the terms here, because I'm completely lost.
Kat Feete
If you post something you want me to see, send it to me personally as
well- I'm going on vacation for the next two weeks.
--------------------
Certain things have to happen before other things. Gods play
games with the fates of men. But first they have to get all the
pieces on the board, and look all over the place for the dice.
-Terry Pratchett
