Graphs 'R Us

Right. Over at Faute de Mieux they've been so busy that David's reply now has been archived, whilst my blog has been expanded with a three sentence post.

I better respond now, before my data has gone stale.

Here's David responding to this post, and here he is again, responding to the same post once it was finished. One of these days I will learn the difference between the 'publish post' and 'safe as draft' buttons, I promise.

Anyway, here's David:

... just because the Centraal Bureau de Statistiek refuses to take a stand doesn't mean that we can't. Let's return to the question of age structure and birth rates by ethnic group. I asserted:

i) That ethnic Dutch, in line with all other "native" Western European populations, are failing to reproduce at replacement-level (2.1 births per woman) and may be reproducing far below it (as I think likely);

ii) That the Netherlands' immigrant and immigrant-descended populations are themselves reproducing at above -- and sometimes far above -- replacement levels;

iii) That i) and ii) mean that an ever-growing portion of young people in the Netherlands are of immigrant-origin while an ever-shrinking portion of them are of ethnic Dutch origin;

Finally, iv) that this is troubling if you are Dutch and/or have any attachment to historic Dutch culture.

I am Dutch, and I have several feet of bookshelf worth of attachment to historic Dutch culture. But David is kind of skipping over what I said earlier.

So I am sorry David, the projections do not support your theory about above-replacement level fertility rates. They don't support any other theory either.

In order for you theory to come to pass in Holland (or Europe, for that matter), there can be (1) no decline in fertility rates, (2) no integration into European society, not even for third and fourth generation Muslims, (3) no moderation (let alone secularization) of Muslim faith, (4) no significant remigration to the country of origin, and (5) no interfaith marriage. In short, it is the worst case scenario. Not impossible, but not very likely either.

(...)

Fertility rates among immigrants in Holland have fallen sharply, although they are still higher than average. However, the assumption that Muslims might take over by means of outbreeding the locals is not based on simple extrapolation of current trends, quite the contrary, this is a worst-case scenario that can only come about if certain trends are reversed.

My great-grandfathers were French, German, Dutch and Ashkenazim. I am Dutch. In fact, my grandparents were Dutch. Integration did not take 50 years back then.

The proportion of the population with funny surnames in 2050 is not the relevant datapoint here, what we're interested in is the number of people who are not integrated into Dutch society. 50 years from now!

We have no clue. We have no idea how many foreigners there will be in 2050 (the best bet is on "more"), we don't know where the new ones are going to come from, and we sure as hell don't know what they'll be thinking in 2050.

But is it likely that all newcomers and their descendants remain vehemently socially conservative? Or even moderately religious? Will they still lack Dutch language skills? What about education, will the descendants of todays immigrants be as poorly schooled as their parents? Will they still marry only within their own ethnic groups? We don't know. But it's not very likely, is it?

And one more thing. The Dutch consider their country to be overpopulated. Not only do most Dutchmen think we have too many foreign people, they think we have too many people. A decline in population is something we want, and I suspect that most of us are even willing to put up with the decline in economic growth that would be the result. Remember, if England (yes, England, not the UK) were as densily populated as the Netherlands it would have 60 rather than 50 million inhabitants. The United States would have 4.4 billion. I think the Dutch population would rather have a country of 15 million people of which 10 percent are Muslim immigrants than a country of 25 million people with only 6 percent Muslim immigrants.

Now, more graphs and analysis. Please not that all projections are built on the assumption that Dutch population will grow from the current 16.3 million to 17.6 million in 2050. In other words, all these graphs assume that the prognosis considered most likely actually comes to pass.

Here's the proportional shift between locals and (first and second generation) immigrants.

As you can see, the share of Non-Western immigrants doubles. Here you can see the rise in absolute numbers:

But let's be honest. We're not worried about the social conservative behavior of Brazilians or Chinese. We're talking about Muslims.

As you can find here (huge pdf) on page 72-74, the Muslim part of Asian and African immigration has been about 50% for the last 5 years. Supposing this percentage remains constant, the last graph really ought to look like this:

The Muslim percentage of the population would thus grow from 5.8 today to a bit over 10 in 2050.

Muslim percentage of population

What part of this is due to new immigration, and what part of it is due to Muslim residents breeding like the proverbial rabbits? This chart may yield the answer:

Percentage of Muslim population by origin


And what do you know? If new Muslim immigration from Africa and Asia were to stop right now, this would easily knock one or two percent of the end total. Perhaps it is good to take a closer look at where these Asian and African Muslims actually come from:

African Muslims, current situation
(Note: Ghana and Ethiopia are only partially Muslim)



Asian Muslims, current situation



Hmmm. It seems to me that most of the current bunch are asylum seekers. And as I've written earlier, the asylum laws are now stricter than they were a few years ago. And family formation laws are stricter than they were a few years ago, and will get stricter still. And family reunification laws might also get stricter still.

And, of course, when things can't get any worse, they can only get better. If the situation improves in any of these countries, Holland is not going to accept new asylum seekers from there. Hey, things may even improve enough so that we could send some of them back.

All this is to say, that current projections seem to imply:

1. Non-stop trouble in the Muslim world on a scale as large as we've seen the last few years. From now until 2050.
   
2. Immigration policies that remain pretty much unchanged.
   

So, even the most likely scenario is, on its face, rather unlikely. Immigration laws will get stricter, and 50-year quagmires are rare.

But suppose, suppose we'll end up just as projected. Where will we be? The percentage of Muslims (or Muslim apostates) will have increased from 5.8 to a bit over 10.

That is, according to our best (but still highly unreliable) estimates, in 50 years time the Netherlands will finally look like the NY Times wants us to think it looks now!

But no, there is more! Undoubtedly, second, third and fourth generation Muslims will be more integrated than the current lot. Better jobs, more intermarriage, less ties to the country of origin. Not unreasonable, heh?

Suppose just half of them have integrated, wearing clogs and visiting coffeehouses to smoke hashish from hookahs, while the other half of them remain de facto segregated, wearing djellabas and visiting coffeehouses to smoke shisha tobacco from hookahs, then the situation will not even get any worse!

Let me rephrase that:

If current trends continue, then in 50 years the Netherlands will have 2 million extra immigrants. But, provided Muslims integrate at a reasonable rate, problems between Muslims and Non-Muslims will not get any bigger at all.

Just imagine what happens if Dutch politicians try to curb the immigration trend downwards. They might even *gasp* solve the problem!

Now I know all these projections aren't worth the paper they're written on. The Middle East could explode, in which case the increase in the number of refugees will probably be considered one of the minor problems. And the desert can bloom, in which case we could decide to send a lot of people back there. We don't know and anyway, it's out of our control.

Inasmuch as we can control trends, our politicians are trying to steer them in the right direction. There is not much more we can do. In 50 years time, we'll know wether this was enough.

Right now, let's divert our attention to other, more pressing problems.

Further reading:

If you want to read about Muslim fertility rates in the Netherlands, get this pdf.
If you want to read about Dutch demographics in the European context, get this pdf.
If you want to compare European facts with European views, get this pdf. I think I'll browse through this one some day soon. Find out if other people are as underinformed about themselves as the Dutch are.
And if you want to read it all, get the CBS statistical yearbook 2004. All 520 pages of it. Happy reading!