Declining birth rates linked to secularization, growing hostility toward religion
by Brandon Showalter, Christian Post:
Declining fertility rates have a significant correlation with increased secularization, according to Baylor University professor Philip Jenkins.
In a Regent College (Vancouver, British Columbia) live-stream titled “Fertility and Faith: A Conversation with Philip Jenkins,” the Baylor University professor of history and co-director of the program on historical studies of religion, explained Thursday that demography derives from changes in religious belief.
Much of modern Africa tends to be devoutly religious and they also happen to have high fertility rates, Jenkins said. By contrast, the lower a population’s fertility rate the greater the likelihood it is for people to separate from faith communities and religious institutions. The fertility rate, then, serves as an insightful window into how societies around the world become more secularized.
“We measure change in a society through fertility,” Jenkins said.
“There is a close correlation between a fertility rate of a particular society or nation and the level of religious involvement or participation in that society.”
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