"All the opposing cultural effects like the sexuality depicted in the media makes your argument laughable. For being so scared they are promoting it to an extreme level, both blacks and whites. I'm sure sex ed class has more influence than Nicki Minaj, pfft."

Both have a measurable influence on sexual behavior. In fact, there seems to be no significant difference between the impact of abstinence education and the impact of sex education. This was the conclusion of a study based on the 2006–2008 National Survey of Family Growth:

"Receipt of sex education, regardless of type, was associated with delays in first sex for both genders, as compared with receiving no sex education. Respondents receiving instruction about abstinence and birth control were significantly more likely at first sex to use any contraception (odds ratio [OR] = 1.73, females; OR = 1.91, males) or a condom (OR = 1.69, females; OR = 1.90, males), and less likely to have an age-discrepant partner (OR = .67, females; OR = .48, males). Receipt of only abstinence education was not statistically distinguishable in most models from receipt of either both or neither topics. Among female subjects, condom use at first sex was significantly more likely among those receiving instruction in both topics as compared with only abstinence education. The associations between sex education and all longer-term outcomes were mediated by older age at first sex."

Lindberg, Laura Duberstein et al. (2012). Consequences of Sex Education on Teen and Young Adult Sexual Behaviors and Outcomes, Journal of Adolescent Health , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , 332 - 338


"if you didn't notice the first graph it shows a constant increase well before it."

Yes, I noticed. It's due to the longer-term economic decline of most White Americans, specifically the loss of high-paying manufacturing jobs and their replacement by low-paying jobs in services. So what's your point? That fertility is affected by many socio-economic factors? No one will dispute that point. But this is not a case of African Americans converging to White American norms because of better opportunity or better education. The reality is a lot less upbeat.


"Birth rates for blacks were falling rapidly well before single parent families were big enough to be causing a difference. Fertility rate actually had a huge increase starting from the 80s to the 90s when single parent families peaked. So the decrease in fertility cannot be thanks to daddy not being around."

That was never my argument. Black fertility has declined for several reasons: (a) loss of high-paying manufacturing jobs that could support family formation; (b) easier access to abortion and reliable forms of contraception; (c) decline of grandparenting and other sources of social support.

"Daddy not being around" is not a new problem in the black community. I was simply arguing that the loss of grandparenting is more catastrophic for African American mothers because paternal support is already low.

You really do have trouble engaging in normal discussion.

EDIT: Fixed links for the second time!!

@Peter Frost:
Its abstinence(the one that scares them) that has no effect. The normal sex education one seems to have an effect, which whites have had more of(last link).

http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/abstinence07/ch7.htm
http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/1487 (read the second part).
http://www.siecus.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Feature.showFeature&featureID=1041

The sharp increase for whites might have been thanks to the recession but not the increase before that as their wealth was growing, even for African Americans their wealth was growing until the housing bubble and recession. (They will probably make it back again). Basically the increase in grand parenting by whites was happening while median wealth was increasing and decreasing. For black grand parents the opposite was happening and converging with whites, again regardless of wealth and earning. Both groups have increasing incomes too.

http://images.dailykos.com/images/120169/large/Pew_wealth_gap_race.png?1418660461

Poverty rate also does not correlate with fertility or sexuality in USA, especially in recent years. Generally it had increased in previous years when poverty rose, but not this time. Long term trend is decreasing poverty.

http://www.irp.wisc.edu/faqs/faq3/Figure1.png

Did you not see the previous links and graphs? The fertility rate rose all the way with increasing single parenthood. It saw a massive decrease before that also with dads and grand parents and sees a decrease now without grand parents and without dads. Thus neither of the two can be contributing a significant amount to behavior. There are still plenty of grandparents to go around, but less babies(if you haven't noticed).

Look it simply can't be what you are saying it is. You can even consider fertility rates in Islamic countries that place high importance on having big families yet their fertility has been tanking. Its really easy to check the trends for this just use google. Like so:

https://www.google.co.za/search?q=Pakist...ility+rate#q=pakistan+fertility+rate

P.S. I'm calling you Dr. Zoidberg because I assume (a) that is your real name and (b) you have a Ph.D. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

To clarify, Zoidberg took his pseudonym from Doctor Zoidberg, the lobster guy in the series Futurama.

It's irrelevant to this discussion whether abstinence education is better than comprehensive sex education. I personally favor the latter, but both have been shown to increase sexual abstinence among teenagers. Yes, I'm familiar with Douglas Kirby's research, which purportedly shows that abstinence education has no effect. He compared states that had abstinence education with those that don't, and he found that the latter actually have lower rates of teen pregnancy and teen sexual activity. But the latter also have fewer African Americans, abstinence education being most prevalent in the southern States. So the two variables (race and type of program) are confounded.

Again, it's irrelevant whether the increase in sexual abstinence among teenagers is due to one type of educational program or another.

"The sharp increase [in grandparenting] for whites might have been thanks to the recession but not the increase before that as their wealth was growing, even for African Americans their wealth was growing until the housing bubble and recession."

Median income has stagnated since the 1970s for both Euro and African Americans. Wealth has been growing only for the top 10% and even more for the top 1%

"Poverty rate also does not correlate with fertility or sexuality in USA, especially in recent years. Generally it had increased in previous years when poverty rose, but not this time. Long term trend is decreasing poverty."

It's not so much the poverty rate that is depressing fertility but rather the disintegration of social and financial supports for family formation. Hassidic Jewish families are officially dirt poor, but in reality they have access to considerable monetary and nonmonetary support. Now, take the situation of a single father who makes a good salary but has no other forms of support, either monetary or nonmonetary. Who do you think will have the larger family?

Sorry, but the long-term trend is increasing poverty for the bulk of the U.S. population. You're probably looking at average income and not median income.

"The fertility rate rose all the way with increasing single parenthood. It saw a massive decrease before that also with dads and grand parents and sees a decrease now without grand parents and without dads. Thus neither of the two can be contributing a significant amount to behavior. There are still plenty of grandparents to go around, but less babies(if you haven't noticed)."

- The fertility rate has been decreasing since the early 1960s, in tandem with increasing single parenthood
- You're missing my point about grandparenting. (I'm not talking here about situations where the grandparent is the primary source of child care; I'm also including grandparents who assist the mother and father). The overall decline of grandparenting has been more catastrophic for African American women than for Euro-American women because paternal care is already low within the black community.
- Grandparenting is declining for two reasons: a) generation intervals are increasing, so grandparents are often too old to help out; b) grandparents are increasingly asserting their personal autonomy; this is a long-term trend that affects all age groups. There may still be plenty of grandparents, but they are, on average, much older now and more interested in living their own lives.

"You can even consider fertility rates in Islamic countries that place high importance on having big families yet their fertility has been tanking."

Not all of them. Fertility rates are still high in the "fundamentalist axis" (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia). But even in those countries the penetration of Western cultural norms is growing. There are other factors, similar to the ones that influence fertility in the West. One is social atomization and loss of support from the extended family. Another is the tradition that the groom (or the groom's family) must buy an apartment for the newly married couple. Given the high cost of housing, this means that many young men have to wait until they're in their 30s before they can marry.

I could go on, but you seem to be raising a lot of points that are irrelevant to this discussion, regardless of whether they are true or not.

Meh. You seem to not want to get it. I will try one last time and move on. Abstinence education is supposed to be the scary one, and it does not work, in fact it might have an opposite effect. Comprehensive sex education is mostly just sex information and whites receive more of it than blacks do. IE: It's not even equal yet.

This accounts for ethnicity.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3194801/

As for median income:


Fertility rates were dropping way too rapidly to be in line with single parenthood and then even increased for almost a whole decade while single parenthood was peaking. Its impossible to be influencing fertility and sexual activity. Black sexual activity and fertility were the highest in recent years when conditions were the worst.

Look, the fertility rate was falling well before single parenthood:


Some Islamic countries still have high fertility but All Islamic countries have rapidly decreasing fertility. Also the richer ones tend to have the lowest rates, so your dowry nonsense makes no sense either. Saudi Arabia(VERY conservative and rich) the birth rate now is 2.17 per 1000.

http://mecometer.com/whats/saudi-arabia/total-fertility-rate/

You have failed to convince me as the facts are against every single part of your far fetched argument.

Ok so the violence. Focusing again mainly on the youth, it should account for any large effects caused by an aging population.

Homicide rate gap more than halved 56.5 to 26.7 per 100 000.



source: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/youthviolence/stats_at-a_glance/hr_trends_race.html

Arrest rate for violent crime gap has closed, but cant really tell by how much, however the important part is that black juvenile arrest rate is a lot less than it used to be (note this is ages 10-17 unlike the above which is ages 10-24):



Source: http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp?ID=qa05261

Oh and almost forgot this. Its a statistic of the rate of being placed into a sort of house arrest for any crime for juveniles. All groups have closing gaps. 1996 to 2011.
Black White gap went from 767 to 403 and Hispanic to white went from 267 to 93 per 100000.

http://www.childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/88_fig1.jpg


So far the African American black violence and delinquency is certainly much less than it used to be a short time ago. The overall gaps have also closed but I am unsure about the exact amount. Not enough data though. Hard to find good more recent data on violence.

Your interpretation, surely, is biased. There is a decline in the black-white criminality gap because it returns to their previous differences, after the explosion of black criminality in the 1980s-1990s, whether you side with Levitt of Sailer's interpretation. Also, I would like to know the black-white difference in criminality before 1980. I have heard that the black-white criminality gap before that period was even lower than what your data show.

Well I found some pushing back to the 70s. It looks as if it was closing until the crack epidemic.



But how can we compare the criminality from say the 1950s? Were the same amounts of crime being reported at that time? How easy was it to escape? How were blacks policed then compared to now? There were so many confounds. I doubt you can compare even if you manage to find the data.

Ok so the violence. Focusing again mainly on the youth, it should account for any large effects caused by an aging population.

Homicide rate gap more than halved 56.5 to 26.7 per 100 000.

I've said before that the graphs are deceptive. When you transform the percents in the first into standardized differences you get: start d=2, finish d=1.5. For background read this post: http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/gap.htm Moreover, the implied narrowing is exaggerated by the time points chosen. The 70s and 80s showed a large relative increase in Black crime (and decrease in IQ) relative to years prior. If you look at 1920s to 50s data you see that the rates are about the same as now. So back to normal.

Your interpretation, surely, is biased. There is a decline in the black-white criminality gap because it returns to their previous differences, after the explosion of black criminality in the 1980s-1990s, whether you side with Levitt of Sailer's interpretation. Also, I would like to know the black-white difference in criminality before 1980. I have heard that the black-white criminality gap before that period was even lower than what your data show.

Exactly.

@Chuck

How was it normal in the 1920s to 50s? Do you have any links for data from that period?

@Chuck

How was it normal in the 1920s to 50s? Do you have any links for data from that period?

I looked into this a while ago. I'll have to look for the data.