BryanMaloney
Premium Member
Introduction
Is there any association between Freemasonry and broader social trends in the modern world? It's fairly easy to point to great movements of the past, such as the involvement of Masons in the Enlightenment and the American Revolution. Mexico suffered from what has been called "Masonic Wars", wherein the made-in-France monarchist Scottish Rite was a binding force for Centralists (Santa Ana's faction) and the York rite for Republicans. Many other masonic associations could be found in the past, but what is there in the present?
It would be easy to point to institutionalized charitable work, such as the Shriners' hospitals, but how long this particular example will remain Masonic-associated is another issue, altogether, dependent upon the Shrine's ongoing relationship with Freemasonry. Likewise, other institutional charitable acts are not to be sneezed at--but any organization can pass the hat and donate the proceeds. There is nothing particularly Masonic about that.
We are told that Freemasonry is more than just a charitable association, that it exists for the regeneration of men and, by extension, of society in general, but how can we tell? I was moved to ask that question on a concrete basis by a recently-released report on teenage pregnancy. I did not necessarily agree with its categorization of 18-19 year olds as "teenage pregnancy", although they are technically "teenagers". They are also legally adults and presumably to be treated as such--they certainly demand to be treated as such at that age. Fortunately, the report also had more detailed data, including pregnancies for each US state and the District of Columbia for all children under the age 18. Likewise, it had numbers of births, abortions, and miscarriages. This is not a pleasant thing to contemplate, but it is an important moral and social matter.
The Masonic Service Association has published membership by state for the 51 Grand Lodges of the USA. Since the report on pregnancy was based on 2008 figures, I used the 2008 Masonic membership. Finally, to standardize the raw figures for each individual state, I obtained population estimates by age and gender from the US Census American Fact Finder, also for 2008. Analysis was done with the R statistical package.
The question I asked was "Is there any relationship between the frequency of Freemasons and that of underage pregnancy within each state? I will give brief technical notes on my analysis after presenting results, since the are quite dry. I was also interested in possible regional effects, so I divided the states into seven regions (Table 1).
These regions are somewhat arbitrary.
Results
First, comparing Freemason membership per state showed that there was a negative relationship between the frequency of Freemasons, expressed as Freemasons vs. total men age 18 and over, and the frequency of underage pregnancy, expressed as incidence of pregnancy under age 18 vs. total female population under age 18 (Fig. 1).
The figure shows a negative relationship between Freemasonry and underage pregnancy. As Freemasons are more frequent, underage pregnancy is less frequent. The "Trend" line is a logistic regression (see "Analysis" section) between frequency of Freemasons frequency of underage pregnancy (n out of m, where n is pregnancy and m total girls under age 18). Gray "fan" on either side of the Trend line is 95% confidence intervals. A few states lie outside the 95% confidence intervals. The biggest high outlier is Washington, DC. The lone high outlying Southwestern state is not Texas, so we can breathe a sigh of relief. Midwestern, Mountain, and Western states were the most common low outliers, with less incidence of underage pregnancy than the model would predict. The prominent Northeastern low outlier is New Hampshire.
To investigate this further, I looked out "outcomes" from pregnancy, expressed as births, abortions, and miscarriages. Logistic regression of each revealed relationships between each and Freemasonry (Figs 2-4).
Where Freemasonry was more common, pregnancy tended to result in more births (Fig. 2). Likewise, where Freemasonry was more common, abortions were less common (Fig. 3). It may be noteworthy that those states that had levels of abortion that were outside the 95% confidence interval tended to be close to each other. One could almost say that the USA might have an "Abortion Belt", that would include Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, and DC. Borderline Abortion Belt states would be Maine and Massachusetts. However, even within the Abortion Belt, frequency of Freemasonry associated with lower frequency of abortion as an outcome of pregnancy. You may note that the Abortion Belt states also have low birth as outcome of pregnancy. This is probably an artifact of those states' high preference for abortion. It should be noted that miscarriages also increased as Freemasonry was more common (Fig. 4).
I decided to look into this more closely. A little simple calculation showed that, while the frequency of miscarriage did rise along with Freemasonry, the specific rate vs. births decreased as Freemasonry increased. Thus, births rose more quickly than did miscarriages. A line that presumed a constant relationship between births and miscarriages was outside the 95% confidence limits for miscarriages (Fig. 5).
But how strong are these relationships? I chose to use a "pseudo-R squared", derived from the deviation and null deviation of each analysis (see "Analysis"). These relationships are not extremely strong, ranging from 0.12 to 0.16. However, taking the square roots and comparing them to standard effect size categories for "r" raises the possibility that "moderate" associations might exist (taken from a social science standpoint).
Discussion
This is not a conclusive study. It barely qualifies as a "study" at all. Can we claim that Freemasonry prevents underage pregnancy and abortions? No. That would be outlandish. What we can say is that something is driving these social elements in their respective directions. Perhaps states that have an overall stronger moral fiber are more likely to have men who would be attracted to Freemasonry. Such a moral fiber would also be reflected in lower underage pregnancy and less desire to rush headlong into abortion as a "solution" when it occurs. It is not a matter of economic comfort, as many poorer states do not have unusually high rates of teenage pregnancy vs. Freemason membership. Likewise, we cannot blame convenient targets like "too much education", since, while states such as New York and Connecticut are in the Abortion Belt, other states with high educational attainment are far from it.
Looking at this issue from the standpoint of Freemasonry, it appears that whatever attracts men to join our Fraternity may also have benefits to society as a whole, regardless of overall education and wealth. Whether these benefits are a result of Freemasonry, this very short, simple work cannot say. It is far more prudent to say that there is likely to be some underlying social current that influences both Freemasonry and the behavior of our youth. It would be pleasant to contemplate the possibility that Freemasonry may contribute to this in a sort of "virtuous circle". However, if this is the case, it only means that Freemasons cannot rest upon our laurels. Indeed, the positive association between Freemasonry and miscarriages could underline that there is work to do in an area of medical charity that may not currently receive much attention from the fraternity.
Analysis
As mentioned, I used the "R environment" for this analysis, with the "car" package for some functions. The data actually consist of "n out of m" samples, in which "n" pregnancies occur out of "m" girls under age 18, and then "n" births, abortions, or miscarriages occur out of "m" births. This sort of situation requires what is called a "logistic" regression, which, for various statistical reasons, reflects the behavior of such numbers better than a standard ordinary least squares regression (if you even remember having done one of those years ago in school). I used the "glm" function to run these regressions. Pseudo R-square was calculated for each analysis by the equation 1-((Residual Deviance)/(Null Deviance)). Deviances were as reported by glm. The square roots of these were taken to produce "pseudo-r" numbers. Interpreting these should be done with great caution, as the R-square actually only strictly applies to conventional regression, not logistic.
Confidence intervals were calculated with the "Boot" command from car, 10000 bootstraps. The coefficients were then used to calculate trend lines and back-converted (inverse logit) to map onto the far more comprehensible "percent" scale rather than a logit scale. Geographical regions were loosely based on US Census regions but severely adjusted using no scientific criteria--just a rule of thumb.
Is there any association between Freemasonry and broader social trends in the modern world? It's fairly easy to point to great movements of the past, such as the involvement of Masons in the Enlightenment and the American Revolution. Mexico suffered from what has been called "Masonic Wars", wherein the made-in-France monarchist Scottish Rite was a binding force for Centralists (Santa Ana's faction) and the York rite for Republicans. Many other masonic associations could be found in the past, but what is there in the present?
It would be easy to point to institutionalized charitable work, such as the Shriners' hospitals, but how long this particular example will remain Masonic-associated is another issue, altogether, dependent upon the Shrine's ongoing relationship with Freemasonry. Likewise, other institutional charitable acts are not to be sneezed at--but any organization can pass the hat and donate the proceeds. There is nothing particularly Masonic about that.
We are told that Freemasonry is more than just a charitable association, that it exists for the regeneration of men and, by extension, of society in general, but how can we tell? I was moved to ask that question on a concrete basis by a recently-released report on teenage pregnancy. I did not necessarily agree with its categorization of 18-19 year olds as "teenage pregnancy", although they are technically "teenagers". They are also legally adults and presumably to be treated as such--they certainly demand to be treated as such at that age. Fortunately, the report also had more detailed data, including pregnancies for each US state and the District of Columbia for all children under the age 18. Likewise, it had numbers of births, abortions, and miscarriages. This is not a pleasant thing to contemplate, but it is an important moral and social matter.
The Masonic Service Association has published membership by state for the 51 Grand Lodges of the USA. Since the report on pregnancy was based on 2008 figures, I used the 2008 Masonic membership. Finally, to standardize the raw figures for each individual state, I obtained population estimates by age and gender from the US Census American Fact Finder, also for 2008. Analysis was done with the R statistical package.
The question I asked was "Is there any relationship between the frequency of Freemasons and that of underage pregnancy within each state? I will give brief technical notes on my analysis after presenting results, since the are quite dry. I was also interested in possible regional effects, so I divided the states into seven regions (Table 1).
| Northeast | Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont |
| Midwest | Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin |
| Southeast | DC, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia |
| Mid-South | Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, West Virginia |
| Southwest | Arizona, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas |
| Mountain | Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming |
| West | Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington |
These regions are somewhat arbitrary.
Results
First, comparing Freemason membership per state showed that there was a negative relationship between the frequency of Freemasons, expressed as Freemasons vs. total men age 18 and over, and the frequency of underage pregnancy, expressed as incidence of pregnancy under age 18 vs. total female population under age 18 (Fig. 1).
The figure shows a negative relationship between Freemasonry and underage pregnancy. As Freemasons are more frequent, underage pregnancy is less frequent. The "Trend" line is a logistic regression (see "Analysis" section) between frequency of Freemasons frequency of underage pregnancy (n out of m, where n is pregnancy and m total girls under age 18). Gray "fan" on either side of the Trend line is 95% confidence intervals. A few states lie outside the 95% confidence intervals. The biggest high outlier is Washington, DC. The lone high outlying Southwestern state is not Texas, so we can breathe a sigh of relief. Midwestern, Mountain, and Western states were the most common low outliers, with less incidence of underage pregnancy than the model would predict. The prominent Northeastern low outlier is New Hampshire.
To investigate this further, I looked out "outcomes" from pregnancy, expressed as births, abortions, and miscarriages. Logistic regression of each revealed relationships between each and Freemasonry (Figs 2-4).
Where Freemasonry was more common, pregnancy tended to result in more births (Fig. 2). Likewise, where Freemasonry was more common, abortions were less common (Fig. 3). It may be noteworthy that those states that had levels of abortion that were outside the 95% confidence interval tended to be close to each other. One could almost say that the USA might have an "Abortion Belt", that would include Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, and DC. Borderline Abortion Belt states would be Maine and Massachusetts. However, even within the Abortion Belt, frequency of Freemasonry associated with lower frequency of abortion as an outcome of pregnancy. You may note that the Abortion Belt states also have low birth as outcome of pregnancy. This is probably an artifact of those states' high preference for abortion. It should be noted that miscarriages also increased as Freemasonry was more common (Fig. 4).
I decided to look into this more closely. A little simple calculation showed that, while the frequency of miscarriage did rise along with Freemasonry, the specific rate vs. births decreased as Freemasonry increased. Thus, births rose more quickly than did miscarriages. A line that presumed a constant relationship between births and miscarriages was outside the 95% confidence limits for miscarriages (Fig. 5).
But how strong are these relationships? I chose to use a "pseudo-R squared", derived from the deviation and null deviation of each analysis (see "Analysis"). These relationships are not extremely strong, ranging from 0.12 to 0.16. However, taking the square roots and comparing them to standard effect size categories for "r" raises the possibility that "moderate" associations might exist (taken from a social science standpoint).
Discussion
This is not a conclusive study. It barely qualifies as a "study" at all. Can we claim that Freemasonry prevents underage pregnancy and abortions? No. That would be outlandish. What we can say is that something is driving these social elements in their respective directions. Perhaps states that have an overall stronger moral fiber are more likely to have men who would be attracted to Freemasonry. Such a moral fiber would also be reflected in lower underage pregnancy and less desire to rush headlong into abortion as a "solution" when it occurs. It is not a matter of economic comfort, as many poorer states do not have unusually high rates of teenage pregnancy vs. Freemason membership. Likewise, we cannot blame convenient targets like "too much education", since, while states such as New York and Connecticut are in the Abortion Belt, other states with high educational attainment are far from it.
Looking at this issue from the standpoint of Freemasonry, it appears that whatever attracts men to join our Fraternity may also have benefits to society as a whole, regardless of overall education and wealth. Whether these benefits are a result of Freemasonry, this very short, simple work cannot say. It is far more prudent to say that there is likely to be some underlying social current that influences both Freemasonry and the behavior of our youth. It would be pleasant to contemplate the possibility that Freemasonry may contribute to this in a sort of "virtuous circle". However, if this is the case, it only means that Freemasons cannot rest upon our laurels. Indeed, the positive association between Freemasonry and miscarriages could underline that there is work to do in an area of medical charity that may not currently receive much attention from the fraternity.
Analysis
As mentioned, I used the "R environment" for this analysis, with the "car" package for some functions. The data actually consist of "n out of m" samples, in which "n" pregnancies occur out of "m" girls under age 18, and then "n" births, abortions, or miscarriages occur out of "m" births. This sort of situation requires what is called a "logistic" regression, which, for various statistical reasons, reflects the behavior of such numbers better than a standard ordinary least squares regression (if you even remember having done one of those years ago in school). I used the "glm" function to run these regressions. Pseudo R-square was calculated for each analysis by the equation 1-((Residual Deviance)/(Null Deviance)). Deviances were as reported by glm. The square roots of these were taken to produce "pseudo-r" numbers. Interpreting these should be done with great caution, as the R-square actually only strictly applies to conventional regression, not logistic.
Confidence intervals were calculated with the "Boot" command from car, 10000 bootstraps. The coefficients were then used to calculate trend lines and back-converted (inverse logit) to map onto the far more comprehensible "percent" scale rather than a logit scale. Geographical regions were loosely based on US Census regions but severely adjusted using no scientific criteria--just a rule of thumb.
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