IS IMMIGRATION MAKING AUSTRALIA’S POPULATION DUMBER?
Psychologists have been using tests of cognitive ability (IQ tests) for over a century and due to the tendency for each generation to do better at these tests than the previous generation they had to be made harder over the years. The phenomenon of rising IQ scores was known as the Flynn Effect. More recently the IQs of young people in Australia and other Western nations has tended to stop rising and actually appears to be falling. (1)
School results are in decline. According to the 2015 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) students in countries like Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan improved in the period 1995 to 2015 but at the same time results for Australian students stagnated. In 2015 Australian students took part in the Programme for International Student Assessment. Australia was significantly outperformed by students in nine other countries, falling just below New Zealand and well below Japan and Canada. Our student’s academic performance is said to be in “absolute decline”. (2)
Has this anything to do with immigration? We take in migrants from some high IQ nations such as Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan, but we also take in migrants and refugees from nations where the average IQ is lower, often much lower, than in Australia. To make matters worse the migrants from lower IQ nations tend to have higher fertility rates than those from high IQ nations.
A few examples showing country of birth of mothers, IQ of their country of birth, and total fertility rates based on births in Australia in 2015: (3)
Germany 99 1.58
United Kingdom 100 1.77
Hong Kong 106 1.07
Japan 105 1.45
South Korea 106 1.29
Australia 98 1.82
Iraq 87 2.71
Lebanon 82 3.99
Syria 83 2.86
Laos 89 3.06
Pakistan 84 3.03
Most of the lower IQ nationalities tend to have high fertility rates in their home countries while the higher IQ nationalities have lower fertility rates. (4) It’s a fair bet that the proportion of immigrants from low IQ countries will tend to become a bigger proportion of our migrant intake while those from high IQ nations will become proportionately less. The result will be an increase in the problems we already face with certain migrant groups such as high levels of unemployment and crime. This is assuming we don’t get a government with the courage and nous to stop the Third World immigration invasion.
Meanwhile increased spending on education will have very little impact on school results, which over time will no doubt get worse.
Main sources:
(1) Sarah Griffiths, “Are We Becoming More Stupid?” www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2730791/Are-STUPID-Britons-people... 21 August 2014
(2) “Australian Schools Continue to fall behind Other Countries in Maths and Science”, https://theconversation.com 28 November 2016; R. Hunjan & C. Blumer, “Australian Schools are in ‘Absolute Decline’ Globally, Says PISA Report”, www.abc.net.au 7 December 2016
(3) Richard Lynn & Tatu Vanhanen, “Intelligence”, Ulster Institute for Social Research, London, 2012; Australian Bureau of Statistics, 3301.0 Births, Australia, 2015, Table 6.1 Births, Country of birth of mother – 2015
(4) World Bank figures for 2015, https://en.wikipedia.org