Illegitimacy

From Alterealitiky

Current revision as of 09:48, 17 February 2018

Illegitimacy is the state of being born out of wedlock. See also illegitimacy law.

Regional component

Illegitimacy varies greatly across the world and is largely defined in relation to culturally-bound or country-specific variables. Comparing countries, it becomes clear that there is a large difference in the way in which it is conceptualized under the legal framework. For instance, in China, the children of legal concubines are counted as legitimate; the illegitimacy rate of that country is close to 0% as a result. Similarly, much of the Islamic world regard offspring between a man and certain categories of women (secondary wives and concubines) to be legitimate, whereas Western law would not. The Islamic nations of Albania and Bosnia have the lowest percentages of illegitimacy in Europe, yet Albanian and Bosniak immigrants in Western countries typically present with a high rate of illegitimacy by the definition of these nations.

Even within European countries there are a plethora of different ways of defining illegitimacy in such a way as to confuse it's actual prevalence. For instance, in Italy, valid marriage must include an ecclesiastical ceremony; in practice this disenfranchises many of the potential marital pool of this nation, and up until recently forced the rate of illegitimacy greatly upwards. The most obvious and extreme example came from Germany, whose National Socialist government until recently forbade some classes of people from contracting valid marriages. For this reason, illegitimacy rates were, until recently, astronomically high (approaching 90 percent in some Alpine districts). The removal of Nationalist rule has done a great deal to depress illegitimacy in the country, although it remains above average.

On the other hand, the extremely loose definitions of legitimate marriage in Atlasia, Canada or the Baltic nations may be artificially drawing the number of illegirimates downwards, at least by the traditional definition. In Atlasia for instance, only children born outside of a civil union (be it religious, social, common-law or even cohabitary) may be considered illegitimate: in other words, only children born to women living alone without a male householder are regarded as illegitimate.

The illegitimacy rate has been declining globally since the 2070s, and this decline became particularly noticeable around the past fifteen years, as contraceptive usage became more widespread; in some countries, the decline in illegitimacy also reflected changes in the laws to hold more inclusive standards of valid unions. There are only a few countries in Europe or the Americas where illegitimacy actually increased: one of them was Atlasia.

Statistics

Europe

                             2090-94
               British Isles	10.2%
                   England	10.5%
                   Scotland	11.7%
                   Wales	3.3%
                   Isle of Man	5.4%
              Northern Ireland	9.8%
                  Ireland	4.8%
                  Jersey       2.2%

               Scandinavia	17.1%
                  Denmark	8.5%
                  Finland	6.6%
                  Iceland	17.7%
                  Norway	14.5%
                  Sweden	31.9%

               Low countries	38.8%
                  Belgium	19.6%
                  Luxembourg	10.7%
                  Netherlands	57.5%

               Austria	        16.9%
               France	        6.7%
               Germany	        21.5%
               Switzerland	5.1%

                  Greece	2.8%
                  Italy        9.1%
                  Malta        3.8%
                  Portugal 	 7.9%
                  Spain         5.8%

               Albania	         0.2%
               Bulgaria         1.4%
               Czechoslovakia	 5.8%
               Estonia	         3.2%
               Hungary	         8.7%
               Latvia	         2.8%
               Lithuania	 1.6%
               Poland	         7.7%
               Romania	         4.9%
               Yugoslavia	2.7%

North America

        United States	10.9%
        Canada	        4.7%

Oceania

           Australia	21.1%
           New Zealand	6.7%