Are Asians Not Having Babies Due to Genetics? The Equation that Cracked Low Asian TFR

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they challenge popular misconceptions about race, IQ, and success. This thought-provoking discussion dives deep into the complex relationship between genetics, culture, and achievement, offering surprising insights that challenge both progressive and conservative narratives. Key topics include:

* The truth about Asian-American academic success

* Debunking the myth of significant racial IQ differences

* The impact of immigration and cultural factors on group success

* How class, rather than race, influences genetic advantages

* The role of Confucianism in creativity and innovation

* Why some immigrant groups outperform others

* The fallacy of attributing success solely to individual effort

Whether you're interested in genetics, sociology, or the complex factors behind group achievement, this video offers a nuanced and data-driven perspective that will challenge your assumptions and broaden your understanding of human potential.

[00:00:00] Hello, Simone! Today we are going to be doing a stats heavy episode. Ooh. It's an intensive episode. Yes! It's one of those really fun episodes where I read something that a racist person wrote or somebody who seemed to have a racial agenda.

Okay. And While I think that the person, you know, has some bias in their thoughts, I was like, this is why it's important that we don't ban people like this from talking. Okay. Because they will sometimes see things that somebody who is presenting and looking at the world from a non reasoning point of view will never ever ever see.

And that is really important.

Simone Collins: This is Well, but if you say this to a mainstream progressive, you have already basically just said, don't you think we should genocide all the Palestinians? I mean, you have just said something incredibly offensive because there's this perception that even being, even sharing oxygen with a racist is somehow an unforgivable act.

So this is excuse me, [00:01:00] but I don't know that

this person, they just, they're Seem to not love east asian immigrants and they didn't like that the beltway conservatives liked east asian immigrants And I like east asian immigrants. I really have genuinely no problem with east asian immigration into the united states and I I don't even understand even if you were biased about east asian immigrants Like you must anyway, we'll get to this later in the in the piece Okay but they noticed something that I have never seen anyone notice before and I was like, oh my gosh Like this is true.

This is in the data You

Simone Collins: Okay. Wow.

Comes to the subject of low East Asian fertility rates might be either persistently cultural post immigration or genetic. And in this episode, we're going to talk about the genetics of low fertility rates and why East Asians might have at a genetic level, a lower like biological desire to breed with somebody.

[00:02:00] Whoa. And there is actually a good explanation for why they might.

Simone Collins: In

historical data.

Simone Collins: That, that, so this whole like Kiki Gomori thing, this is people in Japan who just don't leave their houses and the vegetarian men of Japan, the men who sort of just never choose to date or have partners. This could just be partially genetically driven, that these are, these aren't just tropes that happened out of nowhere.

There was a.

Yes. And due to a specific and intergenerational practice that was done in all of the East Asian countries for hundreds of years.

Simone Collins: Infanticide? What?

Well, arranged marriages. Very strict arranged marriages. We'll get to it. But it makes sense when you think about it for five seconds.

You're like, oh yeah, they didn't have to have a biological urge to find a partner. They were matched with a partner. Well,

Simone Collins: or the biological urges to have partners. didn't correlate as highly with fertility or with with having kids and passing on your genes as they do in other societies.

And what's very interesting is if you look at East [00:03:00] Asian populations, And then you look at the East Asian populations that are Abrahamic in their faith.

They have really good fertility rates. Would you like to know more?

. So if you look at studies of fertility rates the heredity of fertility rates appears to be around 20 to 40 percent.

This is if you look at identical twin studies where identical twins are raised in separate families So we already know that there is some biological drive to have kids which ends up affecting fertility rates And you can also look at studies that look at age of a first child Which is really well studied in identical twin studies and again 20 to 40 percent.

So it is Fairly genetic. Okay. It's not as genetic as something like IQ or height, but it is fairly genetic.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Meaningful.

Now first let's talk about the culture of East Asian countries. Okay. So here I am going to put on screen graphs that are looking at two questions. Sorry. I should point out to the audience because the audience may not know this going into this.

I just assume that everyone knows this [00:04:00] East Asian countries. If you control for wealth, generally the wealthier country gets the lower fertility rate gets when you control for wealth. They have the worst fertility rates of anywhere in the world by astronomical amounts. Like they are. off a cliff, they would, if they were an animal, like if you, if you considered them an animal groups, like Koreans, for example, would be considered a critically endangered species.

Well, and wouldn't you

Simone Collins: say that in terms of the, the countries on our watch list for experiencing fundamental structural concerns in the near future due to demographic collapse include China and South Korea before anyone else.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so like it matters. You need to pay attention to these falling fertility rates.

This is a part of the core key of the question of falling fertility rates. Now culturally speaking, we're going to look at first here. This, this is a percent study within a cultural group. And then it was ranking countries, many point to family and children [00:05:00] as sources of meaning in life.

So it ranked countries here. If you look at the top of this wrist, Australia, New Zealand, Greece, U. S. I. These are countries that are actually pretty high in terms of their fertility rate. When contrasted was what you would expect to give in their wealth. Okay. So children are a source of meaning in my life.

Those countries. You want to see who's at the very bottom of this list? Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. They just don't see children as sources of meaning in life at higher, as higher rate as other countries. So, okay, culturally, that's why you would see that.

Simone Collins: Alright,

let's look at another graph here.

Relatively few mention their romantic partners as a source of meaning in life, okay? So who considers their romantic partners, their source of meaning in life? Those countries at the top of the list, like the USA and Netherlands, two countries that have unusually high fertility rates given their wealth.

At the bottom of the list, the four bottom countries. Again, in order, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. So culturally speaking, they just do not see children or their [00:06:00] significant others as key parts of their meaning in life. I'd actually ask you, Simone, if you were like rankings, like your meanings in life, How high would you say like I and the kids are?

Simone Collins: Oh, you guys are