The great Muslim TFR mystery

In 1960 all 12 Muslim countries in the table had TFRs well above replacement rate. By 2011 Iran was below replacement, Turkey was effectively at replacement and Indonesia, Morocco and Saudi Arabia only marginally above replacement.

And yet as recently as 2000 Saudi Arabia had a TFR of 4.01!

Yemen's trajectory is especially interesting. Its TFR actually peaked at an improbable 9.22 in 1984 before dropping to the current relatively low level of 4.45.

For the world as a whole TFR has halved between 1960 and 2011. In this group only in Iraq and Yemen is TFR in 2011 more than half the 1960 level.

By some measures Muslim countries have experienced a greater fall in TFR than most countries at a similar stage of development. Certainly there is no evidence that Muslim countries' population growth rates are stuck in high gear.

Why TFRs should have declined so precipitately among Muslim countries is something of a mystery. Perhaps it is because most of them had anomalously high TFRs to begin with and are now reverting to the mean.

No one knows whether the downward trend in global or Muslim TFR will continue or perhaps reverse course.

As the man said:

A trend is a trend
But the question is; when will it bend?
Will it alter its course
Through some unseen force
And come to a premature end?

What is certain is that when it comes to human beings the only certainty is uncertainty

And sociologists' theories about population, or anything else, aren't worth the pixels.