Birth Rates, Contraception Usage, and Demographic Data Relating to the Beachy Amish-Mennonite Churches
Working paper, updated in 2010.
Original version:
Harrisonburg, VA: James Madison University.
Anderson, Cory. 2005.
The Persistently High Fertility of a North American Population: A 25-Year Restudy of Parity among the Ohio Amish
Population Studies
Wasao, Samson, Cory Anderson, and Christian Mpody. 2021.
75(3):477-86.
Research Points
- A restudy of a Holmes County, Ohio-focused analysis (2015 vs. 1988 data) continues to find evidence supporting wealth flow, institutional, and ideological explanations for high Amish fertility levels.
- Average parity declined slightly from 5.3 in 1988 to 4.85 in 2015, confirming a slow fertility decline within persistently high fertility.
- The conservative Andy Weaver denomination had the highest fertility (5.43) but declined the most (-13.8%). Moderate Old Orders declined 10.4% to 4.66. More progressive New Orders increased 5% to 5.04 but are not necessarily more progressive than Old Orders anymore.
- Farmers had a parity of 5.95 vs 4.45 for non-farmers while church leaders had 6.29 v. 4.57 for laity, confirming institution and ideology predict fertility levels.
- Future Amish fertility research will decompose complex variables, apply rigorous methods, and incorporate larger data samples.
Access Related Content From The Project: "Population Structure—Fertility, Mortality, Composition"
Reviving the Demographic Study of the Amish.
Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies
Colyer, Cory, Cory Anderson, Joseph Donnermeyer, Rachel Stein, and Samson Wasao. 2017.
5(1):96-119.
Collecting and Analyzing Micro Data about the Amish, a Rapidly Growing Ethno-Religious North American Population.
Population Association of America annual conference. Virtual.
Anderson, Cory, and Samson Wasao. 2021.
Persistently High Fertility in a Low Fertility Context: How Do America’s Amish Heterogeneously Respond to Fertility-Reducing Structural Incentives?
Presented at the Population Association of America annual conference. Atlanta, GA.
Anderson, Cory, George Hayward, Shuai Zhou, Guangqing Chi, and Mary Shenk. 2022.
The Population Structure of the Amish: The Demographic Architecture of One of America’s Fastest Growing Groups
Presented at the Population Association of America annual conference. New Orleans, LA.
Anderson, Cory, and Stephanie Thiehoff. 2023.
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