Chinese Relatives, or the Death of the Chinese Uncle…

Welcome to the People’s Republic of China!  One child per family, please.

Since 1979, much of the urban population of China has been restricted to having just one child per family.  What has this done to family relationships in China?  By the 1980s and 1990s, there were a generation of schoolchildren without brothers and sisters.  In the 2000s, Chinese children were born without aunts and uncles, and cousins were nowhere to be found.

By the 2020s we’ll start seeing urban Chinese children without great-uncles and great-aunts, and even second-cousins will be nowhere to be found.  When these children think of “family”, it will only be of parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.  I found a nice website with 102 categories of relationships in the Chinese family; by the 2020s, 76 of these will be obsolete in urban China.

And so we say goodbye to the Chinese Uncle, and the extended family as a part of the Chinese psyche.  And hello, to a country of only children.

Future Religiosity

Whither the future of religion?  Well, there’s three quite large forces at work here, two for more religiosity, and one for less.  I’ll do the “fors” first, then the “against”.

(1) For: Demographics of Religiosity

This one’s simple: the more religious you are, the more kids you have.  The highest birthrate state in the USA?  Utah, and their heavy Mormon population.  Highest birthrate groups in the USA?  Amish and those following the Quiverfull movement.  Highest Jewish birth rates in Israel?  The Ultra-Orthodox.  Which Muslim women have the most children?  Those who support Sharia law.  Among all groups, the more religious are outbreeding the less religious.

 (2) For: “The Great Sort”

In 1900, we all read the same newspapers.  In the 1950s, we all watched the same evening newscasts.  But in the new millennium, the New Media and the Internet have made “selective news” possible.  If you’re against logging, you can read anti-logging blogs, get anti-logging newsfeeds, even read anti-logging magazines.  With Fox News, and NBC’s counterpunch with MSNBC, the Right and Left no longer have to listen to each other’s viewpoints.   Christians listen to Christian news, Muslims get Muslim news, and so on… everyone’s preaching to the choir.  And studies have shown that if you only hear confirming viewpoints, your own confidence in your correctness rises.

So now ultra-religious families don’t have to expose their children to viewpoints that conflict with their own just to obtain news or entertainment.  With home-schooling and religious schools, outside influences can be minimized even as children are raised in secular societies.  Assimilation is becoming a thing of the past.

(3) Against: Easy information

However easy the internet makes single-view newsfeeds, it also makes alternative viewpoints available at anyone’s fingertips, with just a few clicks of the mouse.  And with enough alternative views, some will ultimately be extremely well-researched and convincing.  Most young adults leaving the nest will explore the internet in one way or another, and will eventually be exposed to viewpoints that well-meaning parents had hoped they would never see.

Outcome:

Which will win out?  Trends toward secularism depend on quality of arguments, ability to disseminate those arguments, and education of children against supernaturalism.  Trends toward religiosity depend on counterarguments, prevention of dissemination of contradictory ideas, and outreach to the disaffected through “missionary” type work.

Current trends in the USA and Europe are toward more secularism, BUT… that trend may be limited to the deconversion of those without strongly-held beliefs.  At some point, the trend may reverse itself, and the far-higher birthrates of the religious may take over.

One final tidbit of food for thought:  there were about 15,000 Amish in 1900.  By 2010, estimates had the Amish population at 249,000.  At that birthrate, we’ll have over 4,100,000 Amish by 2120, over 1 out of every 200 Americans.