HOW THE WEST REALLY LOST GOD di Mary Eberstadt - cap 4
4 Circumstantial Evidence for the “Family Factor,” Part Two: Snapshots of the Demographic Record; or How Fundamental Changes in Family Formation Have Accompanied the Decline of Christianity in the West
- If the Family Factor were part of the explanation for secularization, we would expect to see family decline accompany religious decline
- Fatto. Over time, many people stopped having babies AND they stopped getting married AND they stopped going to church
- in his classic book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Robert D. Putnam examines minutely the decline in American “social capital,” or the weakening of various bonds of association during the past few decades in particular.16 He identifies several independent forces contributing to that decline, among them individualism, commuting, and the change in women’s roles
- If the Family Factor were part of the explanation for secularization, we would expect to see other trends associated with family decline accompany religious decline. This we also see
- The one thing that all scholars will attest is that as a general demographic rule, urbanization leads to falling birthrates... The conclusion, therefore, is that urbanization has been responsible for fertility decline in the developed countries...
- people did not stop believing in God just because they moved to cities. The missing piece would appear to be that moving to cities made them less likely to have and live in strong natural families
- If the Family Factor were part of the explanation for secularization, we would expect the most irreligious parts of the West to have the smallest/weakest/fewest natural families—and vice versa. This too we see
- Phillip Longman published a much-discussed book called The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity And What To Do About
- In 2011, as mentioned earlier, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? by Eric Kaufmann argued persuasively and at length that the demographics of the secular West would be overtaken in the long run by those of religious fundamentalists
- Conversely, if family decline was in fact helping to cause religious decline, we would also expect to see, for example, family boomlets accompanied by religious boomlets. This we also see
- What happened was a religious boomlet—in conjunction with a much better known demographic phenomenon, the baby boom. Thus, for example, Callum G. Brown gives the following years as dates of postwar Christian revival
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