Hey, demography fans, see an article plus charts looking at the relationship between fertility and national income, at the Newgeography.com website. Countries with older populations tend to be richer, those with a very young population - many births per woman - tend to be poor.
As my dear, departed father would say, "The rich get richer and the poor get children." He's been dead for decades so it is no new thing. Still, it's good to see the data reinforcing anecdotal experience.
As you might conclude, the trend line outliers are (a) the former Communist nations which are poorer than would otherwise be expected given their age distributions, and (b) the oil producing nations which are richer than their age distribution would predict.
Author Sami Karam notes that children cause poverty, poverty causes children, and gender inequality and female illiteracy cause both. Again, no particular surprises.
BTW, if you ever needed proof that communism/socialism is a way to share the poverty, not the wealth, Karam has the numbers.
