Yes we can, Obama!

Kaal:

"...very soon fading fast..."

The genie is out. It can slow down, but there is an Indian Dream that cannot vanish. Independence happened too. Obama must have had his down moments too. Taste of success is not easily given up.

Anil ji, education and economic empowerment are of course every important goals. Hopefully, we will be able to create opportunities for all. That is a tough challenge (what with India's hopes of turning into an economic powerhouse very soon fading fast...)

Kaal:

If you really want to see demographic changes, work to empower women from minority communities.

In today's world the new paradigm is "In Knowledge Lies the Power". Large population is not a strength, else Israel, as in the days of Islamic warriors, would have been consigned to Ocean. I can quote numerous other examples, where larger population does not mean larger power. Therefore, only demographic change that matters in today's India is how many have been able to move into the middle class (is middle class growing faster than the GDP), are women empowered or not. I would not worry about religion. It provides enough emotions, to produce its vanguards, rear guards, side guards and whatever else it needs.

#135
Wow! DM has established the fact from a study done in 1976 in one particular area of 994 women. The reference is not complete as there is no breakdown of the muslim hindu proportion.

One thing really stands out. How big was this Bhiwandi Nizampur Municipal area of Thana district in Maharashtra State was in 1976.

These kind of studies are done over a period of years and not on one data. This appears to be a typical home developed India data sampling. Congratulations after thirty years the report vindicated Dost Mittar! It has served the purpose.

The first thing needed to establish was whether both groups were equally religious or one group was more religious than other or some weighting. It looks like the analysts assumed that Muslim women were more religious. What crap!

Can we get some authentic data done by some university instead of people whose job was to insert needles for pap smear?

Anil ji, I understand what you are saying. Both you as a person trying to find the truth and DM ji as a statistician must try to study all those variables.

But from my point of view as a Hindu, it doesn't matter which of the myriad factors may be behind demographic changes (if those are taking place), or not.

All that matters is: (1) Is a shift taking place? (2) What implications it might have for different groups over time?

The first is an empirical question. The second completely and totally subjective question, that we have to answer on our own (because people will see things differently, and that is to be expected).

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See, why, IMO, wasting time on studying 'factors' is useless. Suppose I am a believer in Islam/Hinduism. I firmly believe that Islam/Hinduism is growing in numbers because it is the God's True religion, and God is arranging things/cosmos to bring that demographic shift (and all that that entails) about.

Is there any way to capture that unspecified variable? If not, will we convince anyone? So should we even try?

I would say, no. That is a lost cause. Let me close with four bullet points:

(1) Causality is very hard to establish.
(2) Even if you do 'establish' causality, you will not take into account important unspecified variables - such as True God's role. So your research will lack persuasive power.
(3) Causality does not change ultimate impact.
(4) So all that matters is the trend.

anil:

"Don't you think in today's India other economic and social factors need to be considered? For example, middle class brings nucleus family which has several other factors limited income, housing healthcare"

Of course, these other factors are significant..very significant, in fact. But I am an empiricist and will continue to accept religion also as a legitimate variable until someone can come up with an Indian study that shows that religion was shown not to be a significant factor.

Regarding the Sachar commission article, I think that I did read the Economist article. When someone says that if Indian Muslims had the same birth rate as the Kerala Muslims, the difference would disappear, this just means that the level of education in Kerala is higher than that of Non-Muslims in other states and the differences in Kerala due to religion are neutralised by their higher eduactional levels vis-a-vis non-muslims in rest of India.

Dost sahib:

You might like to google and find the essay that I am talking about. It had been sometime ago that I had read in the Economist article in the aftermath of Sachar Commission report.

Dost sahib:

Regarding a call from clergy against contraceptives. This is the closest you can link religion to fertility rate, but the statement does not establish religion as the root cause for higher fertility rate. I acknowledge that there is a disparity in rates among the communities. Don't you think in today's India other economic and social factors need to be considered? For example, middle class brings nucleus family which has several other factors limited income, housing healthcare.

In fact, a while ago a study was done about Lijjat Papad social enterprise. This is a women owned cooperative (??) and it has all female workers. These workers were not educated, but the job had empowered them, and the study found that their fertility rate was much lower than the national levels.

Kaal: It is not shell shock that may be the cause of missing leadership in my generation muslims in India. It is inabilty to take community based initiatives that has been the root cause.

anil:

Even in Kerala, Muslim birth rate is higher than that of Hindus and Christians.

Kaal:

Yes, causality is very hard to establish. But there are a few factors that can be stated and leave the conclusions to everyone's disposition. These facts are:

1. The proportion of Muslim population has been growing steadily at the rate of nearly 1 percentage point each decade.

2.Muslim birth rates are higher after all other easily measurable exogenous variables [age at marriage, rural/urban, education, income, etc.] have been taken into consideration. Whether or not the remaining factors attributable to religion are a proxy of other variables can not be proved or disproved.

3. Muslim clergy, at least in India, has ruled that using contraceptives is against Islam.

Kaal:

I have read essays which linked rate of growth in urban middle class to the fertility rate. These essays debunked the link of religion to fertility rate, and had pointed out to transpose Kerala numbers to all India numbers based on Sachar Commission report. To me this is more convincing, although on the surface link to religion looks very appealing.

Afterall Salim sahib extends religion to a new level and want to explain puja and sajda to be studied. There is no end if religion is used as the dissection of social problems in India. You and I have talked about it.

dm ji, you are the statistician, I am not, but may be I can make a few points.

Statistics have a hard time establishing causality even in the best of circumstances of data collection, analysis, and interpretation. People have to agree on a LOT before they will agree on any causality.

Whether religion is a factor or the shell shock factor and absence of leadership makes people more or less fertile can be debated until cows happily go to the slaughter houses or pigs appear on every dinner plate in India.

All that matters, for social consequences to follow, is for demographic shift to take place. If it is taking place gradually, we will have one sort of consequences over time. If not, then another.

DM #135 {"The variable that has emerged as the most influential in causing differentials in the fertility performance of these women was religion, which might be primarily responsible for the higher fertility among Muslim women."}

DM Sahib,
One possible explanation could be the religious routines of the women from the two religions. While I have never done Puja (thank you, Jang), I understand that it is a matter of ringing a bell, folding both hands, and paying homage to a statue from among a myriad of gods and possibly waving some flame in one's direction. You must admit, that while very dignified, this routine has no chance to compete with the Muslim practice of Sajda - as far as factors contributing to fertility are concerned. Thank you for listening.

kaal:

It turned out to be easier than I thought. The very first article that came up after plugging "comparison birth rates hindu muslim" was this one. url: http://www.chowk.com/interacts/14953

Here is an excerpt:

Title: A study of fertility differentials among Hindu and Muslim women in Bhiwandi.

POPLINE Document Number: 796569

Author(s):

Srivastava HC

Source citation:

In: Srinivasan K, Mukerji S, Gupta RB, eds. Dynamics of population and family welfare in India. Bombay, India, International Institute for Population Studies, 1979. :284-99.

Abstract:

The data collected during March-May 1976 are based on a representative sample of 994 currently married women drawn from 830 households located in Bhiwandi Nizampur Municipal area of Thana district in Maharashtra State, India. The purpose was to analyze the fertility of Hindu and Muslim women and to identify some of the factors causing fertility differentials among the women belonging to these 2 different religions. Crude birthrates for the Hindus and Muslims were 27.8 and 36.2/1000 respectively. The mean number of children even born was 2.99 for the Hindus and 3.89 for the Muslims. Fertility differentials between the Hindus and Muslims when their current age and different variables -- age at effective marriage, education of the wives, monthly income controlled separately, firmly exhibited that the Muslim women had higer fertility as compared with the Hindu women. The relationship between fertility and education of the women has also explained that education has a dominant role in reducing fertility of the women. The variable that has emerged as the most influential in causing differentials in the fertility performance of these women was religion, which might be primarily responsible for the higher fertility among Muslim women. [bold added by me]

Many thanks. DM ji.

LOL, let's not worry about what allegations HP bhai makes.

It seems we have some census data on changing aggregate numbers of different religious groups. I am not sure if birth-rates themselves are of much interest.

But are such data available for India? How do demographic researchers in the US know that birth-rates of Mormons are higher than those of others? They obviously record all births. Do we do something similar in India?