To explain what factors may effect birth rate, I collect 7 kinds of data to form a list and calculate if there is any correlation in 9 countries which are Italy, Belgium, France, Mexico, Bolivia, Philippines, Greece, Japan, Kazakhstan and the last 3 countries are out group:

1.       Birth date: This entry gives the average annual number of births during a year per 1,000      persons in the population at midyear; also known as crude birth rate.

2.       Percentage of Catholic: It shows how many people are Catholic in overall citizens in a country.

3.       Infant mortality rate: This entry gives the number of deaths of infants under one year old in a given year per 1,000 live births in the same year.

4.       GDP per capita (PPP): This entry shows GDP on a purchasing power parity basis divided by population as of 1 July for the same year.

5.       Distribution of family income Gini index: This index measures the degree of inequality in the distribution of family income in a country.

6.       Education expenditures of GDP: This entry provides the public expenditure on education as a percent of GDP.

7.       Unemployment rate: This entry gives the percent of the total labor force ages 15-24 unemployed during a specified year.

But statistics can’t speak for themselves so we need to analyze the correlation between these numbers. I use Pearson function to determine what factors effect birth rate and try to explain why.

As we can see, 0.208 shows that this is little correlation between Catholic rate and birth rate which means more people in the countries believing Catholicism doesn’t cause high birth rate. The prohibition on birth control doesn’t work.

From infant mortality rate we can make it clear that how is health care in this countries. And 0.816 tells us that there is strong connection between infant mortality rate and birth rate which argues that the less infants die, the less born.

GDP per capita and distribution of family income are also related to birth rate. The rich people in the countries and the more equal family income are, the low birth rate is. The number shows that there are strong connections between them which implies economic context is important to explain the birth rate.

We can find that so little influence on birth rate by the education expenditure that even Catholic rate matters more than it. No matter how much governments spend on education, it seems that birth rate isn’t effected.

There is a little influence on birth rate by unemployment rate. 0.44 means that maybe unemployment rate is a factor influence birth rate. But the connection is weak.

In conclusion, there are weak connections between Catholic rate, education expenditures and birth rate while infant mortality rate, GDP per capita and distribution of family income are proved more possible influencing birthrate. Unemployment rate may influence birth rate too but the correlation is not as strong as former variables.