I recently argued that self-reports understate the personality gender gap. As long as some men rate their personalities relative to the average male, and some women rate their personalities relative to the average female, the gap the data reveal is less than the true gap. 798 more words
Japan must stop being overly optimistic about how quickly its population is going to shrink, economists have warned, as births plunge at a pace far ahead of core estimates. Japan this month said there were a total of 686,000 Japanese births in 2024, falling below 700,000 for the first time since records began in the […]
John Tyler was born in 1790 – 235 years ago. He became the 10th President of the United States, yet his grandson has just died. He had 15 children between 1815 (when he was 25) and 1860 (when he was 70). He was President from 1841 to 1845. One of the 150 was Lyon Tyler […]
Regulations about abortion are often wildly controversial. But what effects to they actually have? Caitlin Myers addresses these issues in “From Roe to Dobbs: 50 Years of Cause and Effect of US State Abortion Regulations” (Annual Review of Public Health 2025, pp. 433-446). As a starting point, consider the years before and after the 1973 US Supreme Court…
Fertility rates are falling around the world, but Republic of Korea is the outlier, with a fertility rate of 0.72 in 2024. The International Monetary Fund, in its report on Korea’s economic situation (generally quite good), thought that Korea’s low fertility justified adding an “Annex” to its most recent report on Korea’s economy: “Addressing Korea’s…
In its most recent World Economic Outlook report, the IMF includes a chapter on “The Rise of the Silver Economy: Global Implications of Population Aging” (April 2025). Here are the big trends in a nutshell. The red line (measured on the right-hand axis) shows that the average age of the global poulation was about 27…
The intense struggle between the Trump Administration and federal judges continued this week with another court ordering a halt to a nationwide program. In Massachusetts, District Judge Indira Talwani is preventing President Donald Trump from canceling a Biden program granting parole and the right to work to immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV). […]
See They Want More Babies: Now They Have Friends in the White House by Lydia DePillis of The NY Times. Excerpts: “In designing policy requests for federal legislators, however, pronatalists run into a problem: There’s little evidence that subsidies and protections have substantially raised the number of children women have over their lifetime. It’s not for…
How can I not link to a new Sam Peltzman piece on such a topic? Here goes: Since 1972, the General Social Survey has periodically asked whether people are happy with Yes, Maybe or No type answers. Here I use a net “happiness” measure, which is percentage Yes less percentage No with Maybe treated as […]
Six months ago, I’m not sure that I’d ever heard of demographer Lyman Stone. Now, people in my circles randomly drop his name on a weekly basis. His favorite topic, in case you haven’t heard, is global fertility decline. As a longtime natalist, I share his concerns. One of Stone’s top takeaways: Instead of talking…
Before the fictional musical Borjas-Caplan immigration debate of 2024, there was the non-fictional non-musical Borjas-Caplan immigration debate of 2019. It was an unusual format: Both of us had the floor for over hour each. Borjas:Me:If you pay close attention to my opponent’s presentation, you’ll discover that he’s quite unlike every other critic of immigration. In…
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
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