Thursday, January 17, 2008

France's Illegitimacy

According to a little news blurb from EWTN, France in 2006 joined the unwed countries club. More than half of all children born in France in 2006 were born out of wedlock. The article also listed Sweden as having a 55% illegitimacy rate, Great Britain at 42%, and Poland at 15%.

If these were the examples to compare to, that might very well mean that France is ranked 2 in Europe (the World) A quick (read: lazy) search online did not yield anything interesting to confirm that statement. Didn't France use to be a Catholic country? What happened there?

3 comments:

bill bannon said...

The motivations may be very non religious since these are people who are actually having children rather than aborting them. Could it be that this is the generation that saw so much divorce in their parents, that they want no part of that world of divorce wherein the state becomes the arbiter of how often the male can see the children etc etc. Quite simply by not getting married, they never are vulnerable to the state directing their financial and living fate as they saw with their parents.
This may be much less religious/non religious....than at first sight. It could be disgust with the state which increasingly is ready to destroy marriages at the drop of a hat and to the financial boon of the legal profession.
Again...remember...they are actually having children rather than aborting them.

Chad said...

There is a good point there in the fact that state regulations can both reflect the way a society is going as well as well as shape its development. The idea I was trying to put forward was more that this statistic is a barometer of the degradation of society. It's not so much that the motivations behind making these choices are secular as much as the fact that these choices are made at all. The fact that more than half of children born are out of wedlock is an indication that the French people have all but abandoned the traditional Christian view of family and marriage.

They are indeed having some kids, but the abortion rates are still quite high in France, Planned Parenthood estimates ~50% of pregnancies in France end in abortion. Maybe we can't trust this specific number, but it is still quite high. This also indicates why their birth rate is below replacement. Again, there are worse countries, but this statistic alone tells a story.

bill bannon said...

Yes...that abortion rate is awful...I guess I was being too hopeful and centered too much on one aspect.