Comments on: Obama's housing policies, part one – Is past prologue?

By: Legolas

Legolas — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 02:25:46 +0000

@Drowssap
There is apparently some evidence that suicide is higher amongst young men who are less active in LDS, so my own tentative hypothesis would be that it has something to do with lack of ability/desire to conform.

By: Drowssap

Drowssap — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:30:44 +0000

Legolas
Truth be told I don’t think the government is capable of duplicating the good work that families and communites do. If the Mormons know how to do something, the government couldn’t copy it even with billions of dollars. It’s too clunky.
I find it interesting that Utah has a high suicide rate among young men. Suicide correlates with poor mental or physical health. Interesting.

By: Legolas

Legolas — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 05:49:02 +0000

@Drowssap
Well, it’s certainly possible there’s something about LDS/LDS families that is responsible for at least some of these patterns (but, of course, that still begs the question of how the family patterns came about, and what the downsides are). For example:
Literacy could just be matter of emphasis on learning to read holy texts as an additional incentive to literacy beyond any other educational efforts – an interaction effect. And not really one the government can duplicate.
I have the greatest doubts about effects on health, since cancer especially often depends on environmental factors. But dietary restrictions that, for example, discourage soda consumption, might be partially responsible for lower rates of obesity. Of course, part of the potential down side here is that Utah also consistently ranks among the highest suicide rates, particularly among young men.
There are a number of cultural factors that might account for low violent crime rates: religious sanctions and/or nonviolent teachings combined with a hierarchical ideology might be one possibility. Again, not clear how goverment would reproduce such a theorized effect.

By: Drowssap

Drowssap — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 02:09:16 +0000

Legolas
I know that broken homes and crime, emotional problems, etc. go hand in hand but it turns out that Utah has a divorce rate just barely better than the US average.
by comparison:
2007, Australia rate of divorce 2.3 per 1000
2007, Utah rate of divorce 3.5 per 1000
2007, USA rate of divorce 3.6 per 1000
So… I dunno.
Around 75% of Utah’s residence (I thought this was even higher) are LDS. Plus Utah has the highest percentage of married individuals for all age ranges. I think that must be their built in safety net.
I wonder if whatever crime they do have is committed disproportionally by people outside the LDS community. Back to Google.

By: Drowssap

Drowssap — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 01:38:35 +0000

Legolas
Australia has a divorce rate of 2.8 per 1000
New Zealand has a divorce rate of 2.7 per 1000
Germany has a divorce rate of 2.4 per 1000
Japan has a divorce rate of 2.2 per 1000
By comparison the USA has a divorce rate of 4.2 per 1000
Guess which nation has the highest rate of violent crime? Obviously, the USA. The worst part is we have to incarcerate people at the highest rate to keep crime as low as it is.
It’s not always an exact correlation but for the most part broken homes and social ills go hand in hand.