NEWSWIRE: 10/28/19

  • The share of the U.S. population that identifies as Christian continues to shrink, falling from 77% to 65% over the past decade. Religious affiliation has declined across multiple demographic groups, but dramatic differences in the rate of decline between the young and old have created a large and widening generation gap. (Pew Research Center)
    • NH: With this publication, Pew updates to 2017 its in-depth "Religious Landscape Studies" that provided estimates of America's religious beliefs and practices in 2007 and 2014. 
    • There are no bombshell revelations here. Just a straight-line continuation of the secularizing trends already registered in Pew's earlier studies and in the long-running General Social Survey. In 2014, 47% of Americans identified as Protestant. In 2018-19, that is down to 43%. The share identifying as Catholic declined slightly from 21% to 20%. The "nothing in particular" share rose from 16% to 17%. And the agnostic-plus-atheist share rose from 7% to 9%. The percent of U.S. adults who say they attend religious service "monthly or more" fell from 50% in 2014 to 45% on 2018-19. Meanwhile, the percent who say they attend "a few times a year or less" grew from 50% to 54%. See the first two charts below.
    • As it did in its earlier studies, Pew points out that some of this decline probably comes from noncommittal or "moderate" Christians (who never went to church very often) becoming more open about admitting they are unaffiliated. This explains the larger-than-average declines in Protestants. It also explains why church attendance has hardly dropped at all among Americans who still claim to be Christian--and why the "born again" share of Protestants has actually been rising slightly over time.
    • Yet most of this measured decline undoubtedly reflects real changes in belief and behavior. As we pointed out in an earlier NewsWire (see "Trendspotting: 4/22/19"), these changes can be decomposed into period effects (changes that appear in everyone at all ages in the same year) and cohort effects (changes that "age in" with new birth cohorts over time).
    • The period effects are significant. Starting in the early 1990s, after many decades of relative stability, most measures of religiosity have declined across all age groups. This decline slowed a bit in the early '00s (around the time of 9/11), but otherwise has been pretty much a straight line. Let me quote from our earlier piece: "Among the period drivers, one big one is declining public trust in churches and church leaders due to widely publicized scandals and abuses. This decline has been especially steep among liberals disaffected by churches that have allied themselves with social conservatives and the Republican Party. As a result, America's red-versus-blue political divide now encompasses religion (see Robert Putnam et al., American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us)--which tempts some Democratic leaders to abandon their religious voters."
    • Yet there are also strong generational drivers. The evidence suggests that Boomers, Xers, and Millennials are each becoming increasingly less religious (at the same age) than the three generations before them. Since 2007, for example, the current Pew study shows the smallest age-bracket decline for the Silent, a larger decline for Boomers and Xers, and a very large decline for Millennials. See the third and fourth charts below.
    • Even among Millennials, late-wavers (born in the 1990s) appear to be less religious than early-wavers (born in the 1980s), although some of this may be caused by a progressively later age of marriage and childbearing. (Marriage and children are well-known "life cycle" triggers of greater religiosity.) The unaffiliateds' median age is 36, ten years younger than the national median age. Millennials are left-brained achievers who hold science and technology in high regard. Clearly, many of these thirtyish young adults want to break from what they perceive to be the faith-based, born-again dogmas of their Boomer parents.
    • Since we have a national election coming up, let's return to the topic of religion by political party. Among Democratic-leaning voters, 34% are now religiously unaffiliated and 61% go to church a few times a year or less. Among Republican-leaning voters, the numbers are 16% and 45%, respectively. A lot of this is driven by ideological self-selection according to how each party aligns itself on values issues. Generationally, the split manifests itself in the disproportionate shares of Millennials and late-wave Xers leaning to the Democrats, and of Silent and Boomers leaning to the Republicans.
    • Yet religion is also becoming a real challenge for the Democrats due to a widening split between, on the one hand, their cutting-edge cultural progressives and, on the other, their large African-American and Hispanic constituencies. The former tend to be much less religiously affiliated than other Americans. (Indeed, many are agnostics or atheists--who in turn are disproportionately high-education and high-income single whites.) The latter tend to be much more religiously affiliated than other Americans. Consider that, in 2018-19, 61% of African-American Democrats (and 49% of Hispanic Democrats) go to church at least monthly--versus 29% of white Democrats. And 74% of black Democrats consider themselves Christian--versus 47% of white Democrats. See last two charts below.
    • In recent years, most of America has been moving left when it comes to economic issues (see "Trendspotting: 7/1/19"). But the same is not true when it comes to social and religious values--despite America's growing indifference to church membership and church attendance. By very large majorities, most Americans continue to believe that churches "strengthen community bonds" (89%), "play an important role in helping the poor" (87%), and "protect and strengthen morality in society" (75%). This probably explains why African-American and Hispanic Democrats are nearly twenty percentage points less likely to self-identify as "liberal" than white Democrats. This gap has more than doubled over the past 15 years.
    • Back in the 2016 primaries, Hillary Clinton knew how to use biblical cadences and faith-based parables to win over black audiences in southern states. Bernie Sanders was (and is) largely tone-deaf on religion and race. Which is why Bernie lost those states and hence the nomination. Yet in 2020 the two candidates now rising in the polls and getting the bulk of the positive media--Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg--poll even worse among African Americans and Hispanics than Bernie Sanders does. Joe Biden does a bit better among African Americans, but not among Hispanics.
    • Yes, there are candidates who do relatively better with minorities. But none of them (Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Julian Castro, Beto O'Rourke) seem to be going anywhere in the national polls.

Trendspotting: Fewer Than Half of Americans Go To Church "Monthly or More." - Oct 27 chart2

Trendspotting: Fewer Than Half of Americans Go To Church "Monthly or More." - Oct 27 chart3

Trendspotting: Fewer Than Half of Americans Go To Church "Monthly or More." - Oct 27 chart4

Trendspotting: Fewer Than Half of Americans Go To Church "Monthly or More." - Oct 27 chart5

Trendspotting: Fewer Than Half of Americans Go To Church "Monthly or More." - Oct 27 chart6

Trendspotting: Fewer Than Half of Americans Go To Church "Monthly or More." - Oct 27 chart7

  • Japan’s fertility crisis continues apace, with preliminary data from the first seven months of 2019 showing the sharpest drop in births in 30 years. From January to July, births fell 5.9% YoY—even faster than official projections had indicated. (CNN)
    • NH: When Shinzo Abe became Prime Minister in 2012, Japan's total fertility rate (TFR) was rising from its historic low of 1.26 in 2005. And during his first years in office, Abe had high hopes that he could make it climb still higher with a faster-growing economy and additional incentives to have children. Alas, things did not work out that way. The TFR peaked in 2015 at 1.45 and has since been sinking again. It reached 1.42 in 2018. (See "Trendspotting: 7/1/19.") And according to preliminary data it may do no better in 2019.
    • Without a higher TFR--a measure of age-adjusted birth behavior--the simple birthrate (births as a percent of population) is guaranteed to sink even further. This is because of Japan's rapid birthrate drop after the early 1970s, which in turn--since 2005--has created a steadily shrinking number of women in their early 30s (the age at which most Japanese women give birth). See the first chart below, which shows the simple birthrate over time. (Pay no attention to the big notch in 1966: In that year, many Japanese parents avoided giving birth to avoid incurring "the curse of the fire-horse.") That birthrate slide shows up in the population pyramid, the second chart below, as a steep decline in the number of women today under age 45.
    • The moral of this story? Japan needs a sharp rise in its TFR simply to keep its birthrate unchanged. That rise does not seem to be happening. So Japan's birthrate along with its absolute number of births continue to hit new historic lows pretty much every year.
    • The social, economic, generational, and cultural drivers behind Japan's low fertility behavior are long standing and deep seated. They are unlikely to be turned around any time soon by anything short of cataclysmic political change. (See "Trendspotting: 8/19/19.") Perhaps Japan can derive some cold comfort from knowing that nearly every other society in Confucian East Asia is following in its footsteps, though with a lag. South Korea, arguably, is experiencing a more severe fertility drop that is even less amenable to policy fixes. (See "Trendspotting: 9/9/19.")

Trendspotting: Fewer Than Half of Americans Go To Church "Monthly or More." - Oct 27 chart8

Trendspotting: Fewer Than Half of Americans Go To Church "Monthly or More." - Oct 27 chart9

Trendspotting: Fewer Than Half of Americans Go To Church "Monthly or More." - Oct 27 chart10 

  • A recent study that reported there’s no health reason to avoid red meat has set off a firestorm of debate among scientists and policy experts. The study concluded that there’s little evidence linking red meat to cancer or heart disease, prompting dozens of organizations that have long claimed the opposite to issue strong objections. (Vox)
    • NH: Once again, an "everybody-knows-that" scientific consensus gets blasted by new research. Everybody knew that continents never moved--until the discovery of plate tectonics. Everybody knew that stress caused ulcers--until the discovery of H. Pylori. Everybody knew that fat was bad for you--until we investigated the role of sugar consumption.
    • What kicked off such a hostile reaction from the health-and-nutrition establishment, which has vilified meat-eating for decades, was the impeccable credentials and methods of this research team. The 14 researchers came from seven different countries, and their conflict-of-interest bona fides have been thoroughly vetted. They published their findings in the Annals of Internal Medicine, a strictly refereed medical journal, in five separate articles. They screened their meta-assessment of all studies on meat consumption according to the GRADE criteria of statistical reliability, widely regarded as the most rigorous among medical researchers. And they ended up weighing the results of over 600 cohort studies encompassing millions of persons.
    • Because the new team deemed most of the animal and case-control studies to be unreliable, they ended up throwing out most of the evidence implicating meat as harmful. A careful analysis of the remaining cohort studies, controlling for any relevant variable, turned up no clear evidence that eating red meat (in any reasonable quantity, processed or unprocessed) is reliably linked to overall mortality or to the incidence of major types of cancer. The researchers carefully worded their conclusions. They didn't say that meat could not be harmful--or that better evidence could not point to that conclusion. They simply say that, on the basis of current evidence, the conclusion is unwarranted.
    • The progressive establishment was outraged. Among other things, they complained that the researchers did not take into account how the cultivation of meat ruins the environment. In doing so, they confirmed how ideology sabotages clear thinking--as though it were not possible to logically separate these into two different questions. As for most ordinary people around the world, who continue (inexplicably, perhaps) to live longer even while eating more meat per capita (see "Trendspotting: 5/28/19"), they can now worry a bit less.
    • Before the neolithic revolution, most homo sapiens had thrived for thousands of generations on a diet comprised of a high percentage of meat and fat. It would be surprising if modern humans were not reasonably well adapted to such a diet. (The same cannot be said of refined carbohydrates.) But some people pay no attention to evolutionary design. They think their pet dogs and cats would be healthier on a vegan diet. All I can say is... good luck with that.
  • Several of Europe’s most anti-immigrant countries are quietly importing workers to help manage a labor crisis. Even as the leaders of Hungary and its surrounding nations rail against immigrants, the number of work permits they’re issuing to non-EU citizens is growing fast. (Bloomberg Businessweek)
    • NH: What do you do if you are a country that faces severe shortages in younger workers and yet is also socially or culturally unwilling to welcome a higher number of immigrants? Well, there is another option. And some immigrant-averse countries like Japan and South Korea are beginning to adopt it. (See "Trendspotting: 9/16/19" and "Trendspotting: 10/7/19.")
    • The idea is to bring in new workers from abroad as something less than immigrants: as "guest workers" who have visas that place limits on where and how they live and that don't guarantee them any right to permanent residency. The practice is widespread in Asia and the Mideast and is beginning to spread to Eastern Europe, especially among nations like Hungary and Poland whose leaders are officially hostile to raising immigration. Thus far these programs seem to be working fairly well. Specific labor market shortages are addressed--for example in construction or nursing--even while the government prevents these workers from bringing their families and requires them to return home periodically.
    • The big and unanswered question is whether these policies are sustainable over time. Employers will inevitably pressure governments for longer residence and families. And eventually this growing cadre of second-class citizens may insist on changing the rules of the game. Hungary and Poland bill these as stopgap measures, meant to fill the labor shortfall until stronger economic growth pulls down emigration and higher fertility produces more native workers.
    • Maybe. Or maybe not. As the Romans found out in the 4th century AD, the internal resettlement of foreign peoples to fill a demographic deficit often starts with a clear short-term logic but then acquires a momentum of its own. In the Roman case, it became (as ancient historian Walter Goffart famously put it) "an imaginative experiment that got a little out of hand."
  • In the eyes of WSJ columnist Andy Kessler, “Silicon Valley [Has Gone] Soft.” By acceding to their critics, he insists, companies like Uber and Apple risk abandoning the bold moves that made them successful in the first place. (The Wall Street Journal)
    • NH: What accounts for Silicon Valley's world-renowned track record of high-tech innovation? In popular mythology, it was the organizational skills of the G.I. and Silent Generations that provided the microchip infrastructure. Then it was the vision of Boomers like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs that dreamed up the new digital paradigm. And finally it was the cut-throat entrepreneurship of Gen-Xers--always willing to take risks and "think outside the box"--that spawned the firms that changed our lives.
    • All that is now coming to an end, concludes Andy Kessler, himself a late-wave Boomer (born in 1958) well situated to assess this generational story. Back when young Gen-Xers were still starting up firms, he says, no one cared about what was "socially positive" or "people friendly." Innovators only focused on what worked--better, faster, cheaper. Now, he fears, a new era is dawning. As Millennials age into leadership roles, he sees political correctness suffusing over the Valley and suffocating bold new ventures. As Valley CEOs amp up their lobbying budgets to Washington, DC,  and focus more on how their businesses are perceived than how they perform, he anticipates stagnation. Instead of "moving fast and breaking things" (the famous Facebook motto), Valley leaders are moving deliberately and apologizing profusely.
    • It's a good piece, and Kessler's sense of the changing mood is on target. But I think he overlooks the changing impact of the sheer size of these companies. Back when Xers were in their 20s and 30s and their start-ups were small, more competition was the way to make more money. Now that Xers are in their 40s and 50s and the FAANG stocks comprise over 10% of the S&P 500, less competition is the way to make more money. And CEOs who want less competition have every incentive to get friendlier with government and focus more on airbrushing their public image.
  • A generational divide has emerged among South Koreans over reunification, with younger Koreans far less enthused about reconciling with the North. Only 39% of those in their 20s want reunification, compared to 58% of South Koreans overall; in their view, the economic and cultural gaps to overcome are just too large. (Christian Science Monitor)
    • NH: South Koreans who personally recall the Korean War and its aftermath still think of it as a civil war. The armistice declared in 1954 satisfied no one, since Koreans at the time (though not the Americans) thought the war was mostly about which government should rule all of Korea. Today, South Koreans over age 60 are most likely to support the reunification of north and south as a serious policy goal, even while they continue to support armed vigilance against an attack from Kim Jong Un. South Koreans age 40 to 60 express less interest in reunification yet also say they are less worried about war. South Koreans under age 40, on the other hand, are the least interested in reunification--yet are also as worried about another war as their parents or grandparents.
    • Having grown up with democracy and unprecedented affluence, young South Koreans don't see how unifying with a backward and tyrannical regime serves any purpose--or would even be possible. They are overwhelmingly opposed to a united Olympic team or to economic aid for North Korea. At the same time, their greater sense of national self-sufficiency makes them less likely to trust the United States--or any other ally--to come to South Korea's assistance in case of another northern invasion. So the youngest Koreans are as fearful of war as the oldest Koreans. Indeed, the main reason why some young South Koreans favor reunification is simply as a means to avert war. See charts below.
    • Over the past year, the popularity of President Moon Jae-in's "sunshine" peace initiative toward North Korea has declined among all age groups. Some of the decline is due to the obvious unraveling of Trump's effusive detente with Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. And some of it has accompanied Moon's steep decline in the polls due to a slowing economy and a political corruption scandal. But the coolness of young voters toward reunification suggests that this decline could be a longer-term trend.
    • In one respect, Moon may be benefiting from the new youth nationalism. Young voters take the hardest-line view of all age groups in South Korea's new stand-off with Japan--and they emphatically support Moon's uncompromising response to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (who is actually less popular in South Korea than Kim Jong Un). So, incredibly, many young South Koreans are taking time off from worrying about the paranoid nuclear-armed dictator just next door in order to organize boycotts of imported Japanese beer and Japanese cars. 

Trendspotting: Fewer Than Half of Americans Go To Church "Monthly or More." - Oct 27 chart11

Trendspotting: Fewer Than Half of Americans Go To Church "Monthly or More." - Oct 27 chart12

  • For the first time, most new prime-age workers are people of color. An analysis of Labor Department data indicates that this shift has been driven by minority women, who are entering the labor market in increasing numbers amid changing cultural attitudes. (The Washington Post)
    • NH: The methodology behind this story at first seems rather opaque. But apparently the analysis focuses on the net change in the labor force, strictly speaking. Since the underlying working-age population is currently experiencing near-zero growth (less than 0.3% annually), nearly all of this net change comes from people who were previously out of the workforce and are now either looking for work or employed. With full employment and rising wages, these new entrants over the last couple of years are disproportionately less skilled, less educated, and minority (nonwhite or Hispanic).
    • In short, 2018 and 2019 have been good years for the lower two quintiles of wage earners. You can also get this news from the Census' latest annual income and poverty report or from the Atlanta Feds' Wage Growth Tracker. It's what typically happens late in the business cycle. Because business cycles eventually come to an end, the WP reporters are right to worry about how long this improvement for lower wage earners will continue.
  • Op-ed columnist Thomas Edsall explores what he sees as the Democrats’ big 2020 challenge: how to take action without overreaching. Polls show that the public backs many “far left” economic policies, but taking the same approach toward social and cultural issues risks alienating large swaths of supporters. (The New York Times)
    • NH: Written by a liberal stalwart, this is an insightful overview of what top Democratic strategists are saying about how the Democrats can best win in 2020 and how they can exploit their victory in the years thereafter. The main fissure among these strategists is between cautionary centrists and go-for-broke progressives.
    • The centrists warn that the Democrats risk "overreaching" by going too far to the left in 2020, which (they say) risks triggering a conservative backlash that will undo all their gains. It's happened several times before--after the 1964 landslide defeat of Barry Goldwater; after Watergate; after the 1992 defeat of George H.W. Bush; and after the 2008 loss by John McCain. Each time, writes Edsall (summarizing this view), "the Democratic ascendancy proved fleeting, and conservative Republican forces struck back with devastating impact." Their advice is to go slow, move to the center, and avoid triggering a reaction.
    • The progressives have a different narrative. They argue that conservatives have mounted successful backlashes largely due to the Democrats' timidity rather than to their overreaching. Obama, by their reckoning, would have helped the party by doing more for poor rural America rather than less. They also argue that this time is in fact different: Several major surveys show a historic shift to the left in the views of American voters. (See "Trendspotting: 7/1/19") Democrats should take advantage of it.
    • Yet another view, put forward by Eric Levitz, is that both sides err in failing to differentiate leftist views that are popular and those that aren't. Some policies that are considered very left wing, like a wealth tax or a $15 national minimum wage, are also very popular. Other policies that are considered more centrist, like welfare for undocumented immigrants or a higher Social Security retirement age, are also very unpopular. Both sides mistakenly associate more left with less popular. What Democrats ought to do, he suggests, is pay less attention to the left or not left--and more attention to popular and not popular. In general, he implies that progressive economic policies poll a lot better than progressive values policies. IMO, the data support Levitz's argument. 
  • A novel-length cover story explains how one DEA agent took down a Chinese crime family that delivered fentanyl to America mainly through the USPS. The death of a teenager in South Dakota ultimately led law enforcement to uncover a massive criminal operation chock-full of fake identities, shell companies, and thousands of kilograms of deadly drugs. (The New York Times Magazine)
    • NH: A Millennial might consider this article TLTR (JK!). I did learn a lot from it--about the history of fentanyl synthesis, about the massive Chinese infrastructure in synthetic drug production, and (most scary) the near-impossibility of stopping this trade. Ten grams of fentanyl can be sold on the street for several hundred dollars. Ten grams is a third of an ounce, which means it is virtually undetectable in any package, or even in a letter. Screen packages? The USPS receives two million international packages each business day, half of them arriving in just one facility in New York City. Payments to trafficker or user can be arranged on the dark web in bitcoin.
    • To quote one drug-policy expert at RAND, "We went from looking for a needle in a haystack to looking for a bacteria colony on a needle in a haystack... If you can move 10 grams from China, and it’s profitable, it’s almost impossible to stop."

      DID YOU KNOW?

      Minds Matter at the Office. According to a new study by Mind Share Partners about mental health in the workplace, nearly 60% of Americans reported experiencing symptoms of a mental health condition over the past year. The most common were anxiety (37%), depression (32%), and eating disorders (26%). Millennials were far more likely than Gen Xers or Boomers to say that they experienced mental health-related symptoms. They were also significantly more likely to have left a job for mental health reasons. The majority of young adults (58%) want the companies they work for to have a culture that supports mental health—but across all respondents, only 39% believe that their manager would be equipped to support them if they had a mental health issue. The industry seen as the most supportive of mental health issues is tech—but at the same time, it’s also the industry whose workers are most likely to say that their work contributed to the development of mental health symptoms.