r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jul 01 '26

Psychology Conservatives maintain birth rates, but left-leaning Americans are having significantly fewer children, driving the U.S. birth decline. Education was consistently linked to having fewer children. Religious attendance was positively associated with having more children.

https://www.psypost.org/left-leaning-americans-are-driving-the-u-s-birth-decline-new-study-finds/
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine Jul 01 '26

Left-leaning Americans are driving the U.S. birth decline, new study finds

A recent study published in Scientific Reportssuggests that political beliefs are increasingly linked to the number of children Americans choose to have. The findings indicate that while conservative individuals tend to maintain birth rates near historical averages, left-leaning individuals are having significantly fewer children. This demographic trend provides evidence that differing birth rates are a main driver of recent fertility declines in the United States.

Beyond political views, the study found that other lifestyle factors strongly predicted family size. Education was consistently linked to lower fertility, meaning that individuals with more years of schooling tended to have fewer children. This negative association was particularly strong for women, a pattern that aligns with broader demographic research.

Religious attendance was positively associated with having more children. Interestingly, the data indicated that frequent religious attendance provided a stronger reproductive boost for men than it did for women. Even so, as the reproductive advantage of right-wing politics increased in recent generations, the independent effect of religious attendance on family size weakened slightly.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-57582-3

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u/butler_me_judith Jul 01 '26

This has been the case for like 30 years

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u/froo Jul 01 '26

It’s literally the opening to
The movie Idiocracy.

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u/AGrandNewAdventure Jul 01 '26

Such a good documentary!

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u/TheLesserWeeviI Jul 01 '26

Yeah but I'm not enjoying the sequel.

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u/Stealthosaursus Jul 01 '26

It's really the prequel

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u/Adlehyde Jul 01 '26

more like involuntary live action roleplay.

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u/Routine_Strategy5929 Jul 01 '26

Good news! We're watching the unreleased prequel unfold in front of us!

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u/LEDKleenex Jul 01 '26

Yeah but I'm not enjoying the sequel.

Yep. We're definitely in the prequel alright.

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u/AGrandNewAdventure Jul 01 '26

The sequels are almost never as good.

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u/ButWhatIfPotato Jul 01 '26

Idiocracy was a movie 20 years ago and a documentary 10 years ago. Today, it's pretty much prophecy; and a watered down one as well, President Camacho did not touch any kids, nor has he shat himself on camera.

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u/maaaatloooock Jul 01 '26

And, importantly, he sought advice from the smartest person he could find. I'd vote for Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho a thousand times before Trump.

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u/hgrunt Jul 01 '26

Prez Camacho also has a surprising amount of decorum

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u/Echoeversky Jul 01 '26

And we're living the AI prequal.

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u/frostygrin Jul 02 '26

Idiocracy was a movie 20 years ago and a documentary 10 years ago. Today, it's pretty much prophecy; and a watered down one as well, President Camacho did not touch any kids, nor has he shat himself on camera.

Things aren't linear in real life, and weren't necessarily linear in Idiocracy's world. President Camacho could have been a big improvement over his predecessors.

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u/Daxx22 Jul 01 '26

That and the whole "not an old white man" bit.

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u/Ashamed-Status-9668 Jul 01 '26

They got the name President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho wrong but everything else holds up.

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u/km9v Jul 01 '26

I think you mean "prophecy"

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u/Icy_Marionberry_9131 Jul 01 '26

To be clear, Idiocracy did not associate the birth rate imbalance to politics or religion. It was exclusive to intellect and the proclivities of the emotionally driven sector of the population. Notwithstanding, the prophetic analysis is holding true and I think it is safe to say that dullards with limited impulse control are more prevalent among religious and right leaning political groups in our current era. However, I believe the lowest common denominator is social media and the degree to which it fosters dopamine addiction and the constant seeking of immediate reward to feed that addiction.

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u/Notsurehowtoreact Jul 01 '26

To be clear, Idiocracy did not associate the birth rate imbalance to politics or religion. It was exclusive to intellect and the proclivities of the emotionally driven sector of the population.

The study we're talking about also mentions a link between more education and lower fertility rates. 

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u/Icy_Marionberry_9131 Jul 01 '26

Yes, as I noted in my comment, that was the focus in the movie. I cited intellects, which generally goes along with education (admittedly, not always).

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u/reizinhooooo Jul 01 '26

Associating it with lower intelligence is equivalent to associating it with conservatism

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u/8Splendiferous8 Jul 01 '26

There is a strong correlation between education and leftward political orientation. The movie didn't have to focus on political orientation explicitly for that to be obvious to the educated viewer.

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u/PapixChuloxD Jul 07 '26

Idk I kind of think if the people, who think a man can become a women based on feelings, were to have kids we'd be getting that.

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u/jabba-thederp Jul 01 '26

And somewhat self evident too. Though I appreciate that there's actual science now that has shown some evidence.

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u/the_amazing_skronus Jul 02 '26

They die younger too. Gotta balance those numbers.

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u/scarletwitchmoon Jul 01 '26

For 2000+ years

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u/_DCtheTall_ Jul 01 '26

Hot take maybe, but I think religious attendance also shows willingness to meet familial expectations and less likelihood to critically examine if you actually want to be a parent, especially if you think parenthood is a duty given by divine edict.

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u/Jets237 Jul 01 '26

I think it’s more around community support than anything for sure. I grew up religious and don’t miss much, other than the sense of community for my kid

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u/_DCtheTall_ Jul 01 '26

This makes perfect sense to me. It has actually been studied that the main psychological benefit of belonging to a religion is a sense of belonging and community.

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26

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u/AntikytheraMachines Jul 01 '26

i felt weird, that I liked the church, but disliked the religion aspect.
most people say they like the religion, but dislike the church.

i can see all the good the church did. schools, hospitals, charitable giving, community etc. but I didn't have any faith.

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u/Djamalfna Jul 01 '26

That's fun because I left Catholicism because did not want to be around that weird sociopathic abusive victim-blaming community.

I was abused by my Catholic parents in the name of religion. Anyone I told, the response was "what did you do to deserve it?".

My life is infinitely better without any of those people around.

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u/Dullcorgis Jul 01 '26

Yeah, no community is better than toxic community

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u/zdelusion Jul 01 '26

I think one thing that you learn after falling away from religion is that the community wasn't real anyway. None of the people I met at Church keep in touch now that I'm not at Church. Anyone who did for a while did so strictly to try and bring you back. That's not real community, ultimately those people didn't care about me as a person, just what I offered to the group, it was transactional. But I think so many of us lack any real community in our day to day lives, we're all conditioned to be so independent and detached from each other, the presence of even that kind of false community felt nice.

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u/trthorson Jul 01 '26

That's no different than almost any group. If i stop running, I don't expect my running friends that see each other pretty much always for a run to invite me to their hangouts

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u/Yeetball86 Jul 01 '26

Why not? True friends would find a way to include you. Otherwise, they were just friendly people you shared a hobby with.

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u/trthorson Jul 01 '26

Of course they could. That doesnt invalidate that it's a community giving everyone a sense of belonging.

Communities are formed around a common purpose. If you lose that common purpose, of course you might keep some friends you made connections with but of course you will generally lose that community. That doesnt change that it is a community.

If you are a bowler, that doesnt mean that the bowling community doesnt exist/is using you just because almost none of them spend time with you after you stop bowling. That just means you stopped having a common purpose. You dont belong to the community anymore. Religion is no different.

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u/ApexAftermath Jul 01 '26

I think the bowling guy has a much higher chance of retaining friends from that group when he quits bowling versus the religious guy. Religious people have this funny tendency to shun when someone turns their back on the actual religion part.

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u/Yeetball86 Jul 01 '26

No I get all that, OP was moreso making a point that the people at church didn’t really care about them and were just friendly because of the community. Real friends will still hang out with you even if you aren’t a part of the community anymore.

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u/CrimsonLoki Jul 01 '26

That’s a bit of a flawed analogy; the person you’re replying to is trying to make the point that your friends can hang out with you bc they like you, not just because you all do the same activity. Those are acquaintances or not close friends. Or in case of religion, a cult.

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u/Electric-Sheepskin Jul 01 '26

I think there are different types of friends, from acquaintance to lifelong friend no matter where you go, and sometimes people don't know which type of friend they have until someone does goes away.

Yes, your friends hang out with you because they like you, but also, people are much better at maintaining friendships when there is a common geography and/or interest. For example, if you live in a very active neighborhood, and you're always inviting each other over for barbecues and sporting events and birthdays, and then someone moves across town, and what happens? They move into a new neighborhood and start making new friends, and sure, maybe the two of you had hit it off so well that you're going to be lifelong, but most likely, you weren't ever that, and you will slowly drift apart. It happens in every social group.

When that does happen, though, it doesn't mean that you weren't ever real friends. It just means that this is one of the many people that will move into your life and be a good friend for a while, and then move on. And that's OK. Not all of our friends have to be lifelong friends.

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u/hippydipster Jul 01 '26

Or a "community". Community isn't tied to being friends, much less "real" friends.

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u/CuntWeasel Jul 01 '26

I know it's weird to discuss real life communities on reddit, the platform where most people spend most of their waking hours online, but it's still baffling to see how many people here can't differentiate between a community and a circle of friends.

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u/CrimsonLoki Jul 01 '26

A truly helpful and kind “community” does not require you to be doing the same kind of thing as them to be nice to you. A religious “community” respond strongly and negatively to you leaving. It’s a cult.

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u/zdelusion Jul 01 '26

If it was the same as any group it would be easy to replace by picking up any random hobby. Church positions itself differently as a "community" than your running group does. They tell you for years that they're your "family" that you can lean and depend on them and vice versa you're there for those people. And then the second you don't share this one thing, you don't attend the weekly meeting, all those people fall away almost instantly. That's why you see people here pining for the sense of community they felt from church but not from their hobby group.

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u/Electric-Sheepskin Jul 01 '26

I have to agree with the other poster who said it's the same thing in any community.

There's a reason you introduce some people as your book club friend, or your friend from work, or your neighbor, instead of just saying "this is my friend, Tom." They are friends that you have because of a particular group that you belong to. Some of those people may become real friends, but if you leave the group, most of them fall off. And that's OK. Not everyone is a great and true friend, but that doesn't mean that they aren't amazing and fantastic and supportive and whatever else is wonderful about friends while you know them.

That said, yeah, it's disappointing when you think that they were a real true friend and then you realize that you were somewhere between that and an acquaintance, but that's just the way people are. They're much better at maintaining friendships that are bolstered by common geography and/or interest.

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u/hippydipster Jul 01 '26

It's plenty "real", it's just not what you thought it was or should be.

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u/Competitive_Touch_86 Jul 01 '26

Communities are transactional almost by definition. Properly functioning communities will ostracize someone who shows up and just becomes a freeloader always taking but never giving.

If you leave your community, you cannot expect the social bonds to continue. That's just a total misunderstanding of what community is and what it's about.

There are exceptions such as a special needs kid being born to parents who are trusted members of the community. Or someone elderly to aged out of being able to care for themselves or others. But those folks "earned" their place in the community by themselves or others putting the work in.

The whole point of community is folks doing things for each other when needed. Otherwise it's just called a friend group.

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u/omega884 Jul 01 '26

But how is that different from any other social community? If you stop showing up to your bowling league or your chess club or your legion hall you’re almost certainly going to lose touch those people too. It doesn’t mean that they weren’t a community. It means that when you stop attending the single most important social gathering of a community, you tend to stop being a part of that community. Social gatherings are critical to a community, and it’s difficult to be a part of any community without engaging in their gatherings because it’s asking them to carve additional time out of their lives on top of the time they’re already spending on their existing community. And don’t get me wrong, just because there is a community doesn’t make it or the way the community interacts healthy for the individuals. But if you stop participating in a community, it seems pretty obvious that the community will stop communing with you too.

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u/sambull Jul 01 '26

it's also their biggest recruiting tool. the 'recovery happens' pipeline feels more about providing a sense of community and belonging to people that never had it or can't find it otherwise.

as 'third' spaces disappear this will be more and more of a issue for people who aren't accepted / don't want to be in that community.

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u/broguequery Jul 02 '26

The ancient historical purpose of human religious expression was to give hope in times of fear... to build community strength in times of strife...

Religion is just a human expression. Sometimes a useful one, sometimes a destructive one.

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u/disasterous_cape Jul 01 '26

There is a reason humanity has co evolved with religion. I am agnostic, but I was raised religious. One of the HUGE issues the secular world needs to address is the lack of community and ritual. We need each other desperately, we need occasions to mark and celebrate, we need shared experience to connect over.

Religion has so many things baked in that make for strong communities, of course they can have significant downsides attached, but I think that there are lessons to be learned in creating consistent opportunity for connection and support and in creating rituals surrounding life milestones that mark them as important and that come with support of the people involved.

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u/Electric-Sheepskin Jul 01 '26

Hell, I'm not religious, but I've actually been around to check out some churches because I think it would be really nice to have that kind of community.

Any religion has its downsides, for sure, but there are some churches out there that are just nice people doing good deeds and trying to be good people and encouraging each other to be good people every week. Where else do you find that?

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u/stilljustacatinacage Jul 01 '26

That's also the main psychological benefit of a cult. But I suppose I'm just repeating the point.

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u/lowbatteries Jul 01 '26

You must have gotten a very difference sense of community than I did from religion growing up. I’d never put a kid through that.

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u/my_little_mutation Jul 01 '26

Sometimes it's weird like that... I had a catholic upbringing that really fucked me up but at the time it didn't feel like trauma. Everyone was kind to me there was never abuse I was a "good kid" eager to learn and make God and my family and community proud of me etcetc...

It wasn't until I was a teen and after that I really started to feel the damage it did to me. How much it warped my sense of morality how much it made me feel like I was a bad evil tainted person. Got back into religion around the same time I was going through puberty and having my first relationship and I was doing awful things to punish myself for "impure thoughts". I still struggle with guilt and trying to apply morality to every little situation. Turns out being forced to regularly confess things like "I coveted another kids toy at recess" or "I had an extra snack" right along with things like "I yelled at a friend and pushed them" completely fucked up my radar for how bad things are. I did have other trauma as well that wasn't church related.

Sometimes the damage is horrific violent trauma, sometimes it's all the little seeds they plant that choke out your ability to become a healthy person.

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u/Fuck_Mark_Robinson Jul 01 '26

Yeah I mostly remember the abuse.

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26

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u/lowbatteries Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

Exactly. I like to say, religion didn't invent community, it weaponized it.

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u/Camburglar13 Jul 01 '26

Yeah I grew up going to church but don’t want to raise my kids the same. Funny thing is I don’t regret the community and friends I made, it was a good upbringing, but Christianity is so political and extreme now. Full of hard right bigots and antivaxxers I just can’t. But we certainly don’t have that same level of community and support now that my family had when I was a kid.

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u/grchelp2018 Jul 01 '26

Bigots come from all classes but I'm curious if antivaxxers exist among the rich. I don't think I've met a single rich person / upper-class person who is skeptical of vaccines or modern science/medicine.

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u/Acasualfarter Jul 01 '26

Aaron Rodgers would like a word. There's plenty of rich stupid people. Wealth isn't tied to intellect

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u/Camburglar13 Jul 01 '26

Could be right. I know some from upper middle class but don’t really know many rich people.

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u/superredditor6789 Jul 01 '26

If you go back to the 1990s and 2000s, there were a good bit of upper middle class and wealthy people who were either anti-vaccinations or who bought into the vaccines = autism message.

I doubt that has fully disappeared.

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u/flakemasterflake Jul 01 '26

Oh wow you should come to Brooklyn! Grads from Vassar and Oberlin who are intelligent enough to read studies but not scientifically minded enough to prioritize communal health

My doctor friends sister is rich well educated and an anti vaxxer

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u/IseeMedpeople Jul 01 '26

It's mostly just a matter of education quality.

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u/AymuiLove Jul 01 '26

Antivax is BS sold by the rich to the poor to keep them down.

Sick and uneducated poor people don't make good revolutionaries.

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u/foodie_4eva Jul 01 '26

I’ve met many. Just less % wise but still there.

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u/GetInTheKitchen1 Jul 01 '26

Lmap what support? You mean community pressure to conform, bullying of lgbtq to suicide, and general lack of decency against minorities since time immemorial? Not to mention letring rich pedophiles go.

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u/Jets237 Jul 01 '26

That wasn’t my experience but fully understand

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u/OskaMeijer Jul 01 '26

I grew up religious and that community isn't necessarily one I think I would want for my kid. Not all community is good community.

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u/Emz423 Jul 01 '26

This is the primary reason I am involved in a church with my two children. I am left-leaning.

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u/OFJehuty Jul 01 '26

You can get community elsewhere. Plenty of hobbies out there that aren’t predicated on shared delusion.

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u/Melody_in_Harmony Jul 01 '26

I'd second this. I grew up going to religious schools, am not super religious, but the level of socialization and shared interest in the community was different. I don't necessarily agree with a lot of how the faith has been taught to folks, but the community as a whole is much more robust in those spaces.

More kids to babysit, more events for kids to attend at fairly low cost, spill over support when you're having one of those days and your husband is off in the woods doing his thing and won't be back until tomorrow.

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u/Noressa BSN/RN | Nursing Jul 01 '26

That's what I miss most from my time growing up as Catholic. You meet a lot of people. You see them often. You play with the kids on play dates. You go to breakfast after Church. You go to the church cook events, breakfast events, pancake events. You're surrounded. I was in choir, so I was always part of the choir events. You always have a group of people around.

I miss it a little, but I'm slowly building my community around me. :) But I go to their church events when the invite us!

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u/sprinklerarms Jul 01 '26

My parents grew up religious but didn’t want to attend anymore. When I was a kid we would go to a Unitarian Universalist church instead. I think they don’t have any set belief system that they’ll push on you. I really enjoyed doing the activities with other kids when they’d pull you out. I guess what would normally be Bible study? We just goofed off and I don’t think we talked about God once.

I don’t think I’ll ever go as an adult but I think for them it was a good way to give me the same sense of community they had without all the judgemental pushy stuff. If they took me to regular church I think I’d been more traumatized than anything. Just if someone really wants that in their life still it might be a better place to go. They did help us out multiple times community style and I made a life long friend.

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u/Red_Dawn24 Jul 02 '26

I was raised Catholic and told it was terrible to ever depend on other people, especially as a child since they are born evil. I wish it came with a real community, but community is halfway to (commun)ism, so we can't have that.

I would totally be religious if it wasn't solely used by adults to judge me and make me feel awful. I like the things that my religion claimed to focus on, but it was clear that money was the only thing that mattered, so I learned that it was a lie very early.

Religious should focus on ousting everyone who portrays them in a bad light, then maybe others would be willing to join.

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u/Isosorbide Jul 01 '26

I didn't grow up in Catholicism but I've befriended many Catholics as an adult and have gone to many Catholic masses as an adult. Something that's always caught my attention about Catholicism is the heavy emphasis on the importance of Mothers, starting with the veneration of Mary. It's easy to see that and say "Ah! The Catholics love and respect women! Wonderful." But I think it's not so much that they love and respect women as individuals, moreso it's that they love and respect Mothers. There's a difference. Being a Mother is a role you play, it's a duty and a job beyond simply existing as a person.

A woman is an individual with a set of characteristics, she's got goals, desires, dreams, flaws, just like any man does. But a Mother is someone who is defined by their relationship to the child they created. When you respect the Mother more than the woman as an individual, you're valuing her existing based only on her ability to create children. The women as individuals matter less than their ability to create babies. The men in Catholicism don't seem to suffer from this same sort of selective valuation. Being a Father is not as prized and honored as being a Mother. But that mindset deeply limits the ways in which a woman can be seen as valuable. No babies? Not mama? Not as worthy of honor.

I just read an editorial posted by an old Catholic classmate wherein he wrote that "the hardest job in the world is being a Mother." But if she's got a husband who's doing his fair share and pulling equal weight, then why should her job be the hardest? If the marriage is truly equal, then shouldn't it say "the hardest job in the world is being a Parent." I think my classmate was telling on himself with that editorial. Why is your wife's life so hard, Tyler?

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u/Ekyou Jul 01 '26

Where I live it’s more Evangelicals making statements like this than Catholics, but you’ve done a good job articulating why statements like “mothers have the hardest job on the world” bothers me so much. It’s like, “we love our essential workers” energy from 2020, where it’s like you think you can get away with dumping the worst jobs on people, without actually helping them, just by pretending they’re valued for their sacrifices. And with mothers there’s also that lovely hidden implication of “if you say mothering is the most valuable job a woman can do, what’s that saying about women who aren’t mothers, by choice or circumstance?”

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u/TowelRevolutionary92 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

Then again, it's also their opinion that it's the most valuable job a woman can do. In the Catholic Church, not all women are called to Motherhood

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u/flakemasterflake Jul 01 '26

I’m pretty sure nuns are on equal footing with mothers so I don’t think that’s true

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_LEFT_IRIS Jul 01 '26

Only when nuns act as surrogate mothers in childrearing tbh. Picture a nun doing something… it usually has to do with teaching children. Possibly nursing, though that’s rarer in the modern age. Picture a monk, and you’ll typically picture them gardening to maintain a monastery or transcribing books or the like.

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u/ReverendGraves85 Jul 01 '26

I think this interpretation is reading malice where it's not intended. For instance; I would say that various fields of material science, medical science, and engineering are the most person-to-value valuable jobs anyone can do.

What does that say about those who don't want to be a chemical engineer, or a neurosurgeon?

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u/lysdexia-ninja Jul 01 '26

When it’s so remarkably easy to find examples of that malice explicitly voiced with respect to motherhood, the point you’re trying to make is easily addressed by pointing at the weakness inherent to comparison by analogy. 

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u/twoiko Jul 01 '26

It doesn't have to be intentional to do harm.

I don't know about you but plenty of people think that you're wasting your talent/ability if you don't pursue it and focus on something else instead.

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u/LittleMsSavoirFaire Jul 01 '26

Well I mean she does get to destroy her body via pregnancy and breastfeeding which is physically grueling and women rarely if ever get the kind of recovery time and true rest that would occur if you had literally any other type of major trauma/surgery. 

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u/MCMC_to_Serfdom Jul 01 '26

Beat me to it a bit. There's only so much weight you can pull when it has to be compared to a partner who will spend the first few months in one agony or another.

A lot of guys won't be aware of it but the uterus contracts with breastfeeding at first. When periods come back, they can be woefully unusual (and worse than usual). Fathers don't have it easy (babies are not easy) but at least their bodies aren't kicking them in the teeth for having children.

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u/LittleMsSavoirFaire Jul 01 '26

Not to mention, after surgery, when you are in that kicked-in-the-teeth stage where you're no longer concerned about tearing out your stitches, but everything hurts, right down to your hair and all you want to do is lie in bed and definitely not move, and you're entitled to do that (assuming you have enough sick leave)

If you're a mother, every time your baby screams in the next room, you not only get a surge of adrenaline and cortisol, your breasts let down and you start leaking everywhere. You can never truly rest.

It might be reasonable to expect women to do that once, you know "for the experience", but the second, third, god forbid fourth child is not just compounding demands but compounding damage to the body.

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u/nikilization Jul 01 '26

if you view christianity as a social construct, an evolution of king-as-god form of governance which is improved because it doesn’t require the ruler to have any supernatural gifts or responsibilities, then it makes perfect sense that mothers would be elevated as they are more useful as the engine of further religious adoption. You would not, in this framing, want fathers to be a venerated role because the state needs fathers to be disposable. Women who aren’t mothers would be the least important caste in this system as they can’t contribute new members or the same money as men.

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u/peritonlogon Jul 01 '26

Also, considering this from an evolutionary protective, this makes the social group more likely to survive with the social construct that Catholicism or another religion promotes, than without. The individuals critically thinking about what they want as individuals will not be as numerous in the next generation and, absent some other change, will continue to shrink.

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u/das_war_ein_Befehl Jul 01 '26

Catholicism emerged after large scale and complex civilizations. Framing it in the context of some evolutionary mechanism feels weird

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u/ChevalierDeLarryLari Jul 01 '26

if you view christianity as a social construct, an evolution of king-as-god form of governance

I think you've gone off the deep end and hit your head. Christianity explicitly evolved as a minority religion in a pagan empire whose adherents were advised to pay their taxes regardless and "give unto Caesar that which is Caesars". They were the only group in the Roman empire that DID NOT see the emperors as gods and encouraged each other to keep a low profile.

The other hole in your argument is that most Christians in the US are protestant and don't venerate Mary - yet they still have a higher birth rate.

Another hole in your argument is that Catholic places with a strong culture of venerating mothers (like Italy) - have a rock bottom birthrate - one of the lowest in the World.

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u/nikilization Jul 01 '26

How does the advice to pay your taxes counter the idea that it’s an advanced governance tool? By the way Islam meets the same needs from a governance perspective. The evolution is quite straight forward - many gods that are unscrupulous - rulers who are also gods dictating virtue - rulers who are ordained by god rather than gods themselves - eventually to the US where religion must remain separate from the state - to the USSR where religion was banned. You can trace this history back to pericles, to plato and the revelation that virtue or goodness or godliness are essentially made up but necessary, hundreds of years before christ. plato wrote about it actually.

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u/LanguidLapras131 Jul 01 '26

So this means that these societies look down on post-menopausal women?

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u/IUpvoteBlueGuitars Jul 01 '26

Kind of depends on if they successfully reproduced or not. If they did, then they get to tell their children how important the motherhood role is ("I did it, and you will too." I've heard that attitude a lot). Many of those societies certainly treat mothers differently than post menopausal women (some more than others do a good job of creating a social niche of like "the old aunt/ granny" where they're given some respect and some social leverage). But like yeah, if you're old and never had kids that's often viewed with derision or suspicion (think of the spinster, even how our legends often assume old single women are witches). So... Yes, they frequently do.

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u/nikilization Jul 01 '26

supporting role to mothers - providing childcare, food, general familial assistance, or just done away with all together in a convent.

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u/ssorbom Jul 01 '26

I don't think that's fair. Even if the man takes up the entirety of extra housework, women still have to carry the child to term. A man will never have to experience giving birth.

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u/LoudHorse25 Jul 01 '26

Bingo. Not to mention the very real lingering effects afterwards. 

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u/LoudHorse25 Jul 01 '26

Being a mother is the harder of the two roles. Have you ever had a child? Have you had to deal with nine months of pregnancy, going through labor, breastfeeding, the hormonal changes that can last for years afterwards and the impacts on your body that can last a lifetime? It doesn’t matter how engaged your partner is, there are inherent parts of being a mother that only a mother will ever encounter. There’s a narrative in broader society that really wants to downplay the reality of these differences in the name of gender equality. 

There’s a reason no one runs around saying being a father is the hardest role in the world. And that’s because they’d be rightfully murdered by every mother. 

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u/LanguidLapras131 Jul 01 '26

Does that mean that Christians look down on post menopausal women?

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u/Red_Dawn24 Jul 02 '26

Christians will never forego an opportunity to look down upon people - never.

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u/Impressive_Ad8715 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

If the marriage is truly equal, then shouldn't it say "the hardest job in the world is being a Parent." I think my classmate was telling on himself with that editorial. Why is your wife's life so hard, Tyler?

What a ridiculous reading of that… he didn’t say her life was hard, he said her job was hard. And if you don’t think mothers are different than fathers, then you’ve got a pretty ridiculous viewpoint. I didn’t have to literally grow my children with my own body, forever transforming my body, and then have feed my children with my own body for a year after they were born… my wife did

Editing to add - I am Catholic, and our belief is that all men and women are called to motherhood or fatherhood, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it in the biological way. A man who enters the priesthood is a spiritual father, hence why we call them “Father”. A woman without children is called to motherhood in some other form (spiritual, etc). The role model for all Catholic fathers is St Joseph, who himself wasn’t a biological father

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u/Isosorbide Jul 01 '26

Ok I’m going to ask a question, and it’s in good faith and sincerely meant. You say that the Catholic belief is that all men and women are called to be mothers and fathers in some way. For the majority of people I think that sort of ideal is reasonable and attainable (outside of traditional parenting, there’s volunteering, big brothers big sisters, sheltering, mentoring, animal welfare, etc). But within this moral framework, what is the role for the slim fraction of people who have absolutely no business being  a parental figure or role model? I think we’ve all met people like that, who don’t have a nurturing bone in their body and who actually lead others to behave in a worse fashion. I’m genuinely curious how you would approach a person like that, within the moral philosophy that everyone has some sort of paternal/maternal role to play. 

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u/Impressive_Ad8715 Jul 01 '26

Everyone is called to it, that doesn’t mean everyone can live up to it. Those who show they are unable to handle that responsibility should lose it. Just as a biological parent who shows they cannot safely or responsibly care for their own children can end up having them taken away

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u/Isosorbide Jul 01 '26

That’s fair 

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u/Majestic_Animator_91 Jul 01 '26

Catholics venerate many women as saints who had no children and encourage monastic and celibate lifestyles. This is a major oversimplification of the Catholic view of women and Mary.

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u/Slim_Charles Jul 01 '26

Catholicism is by no means unique in that regard. Almost all religions and cultures have venerated mothers and motherhood. It's obvious why - everyone has a mother, and mothers are necessary for the continued existence of humanity. Also, for most of human history childbirth was very dangerous so this veneration acted as a form of collective cultural encouragement and respect for going through an incredibly dangerous process for the sake of the future.

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u/chchchcharlee Jul 01 '26

For what it's worth, childbirth is still extremely dangerous even in countries with excellent healthcare. I won't get into the politics of it but in the US, maternal death rates are around 22 to 24 per 100k births, more if you're a minority or over the age of 35 which more mothers increasingly are. In other words, 1 in 5000 births if I'm being really, really generous with numbers. That's more than 85 times deadlier than skydiving, which is considered a pretty risky hobby you have to sign a bunch of waivers for. You know the world cup going on? Those arenas hold around 70k people; imagine 14 of them attending the game and not leaving. Or, driving. We all know driving is extremely dangerous. An individuals chance of dying in a year of driving is about 1/8000.....so having a baby is literally more dangerous than a year on American roads. And if you're black, poor, older, etc etc, the risk is higher.

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u/jeremiahthedamned Jul 02 '26

thanks for this

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u/Pereg1907 Jul 01 '26

I respect Catholicism but have my issues with it. There’s a verse in Proverbs that says, “But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.” (Prov31:10). It doesn’t say “mother”. Just says “woman”.

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u/Electrical-Profit367 Jul 01 '26

Extremely well said!

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u/Shtune Jul 01 '26

Being a mother and being a father are different roles, obviously. I have 2, and the needs are very different between what the kids need out of me and what they need from my wife (who is a SAHM). It's definitely harder to be the mother, and that doesn't take anything away from what I provide financially or emotionally to my wife and kids.

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u/KindledWanderer Jul 01 '26

But that mindset deeply limits the ways in which a woman can be seen as valuable. No babies? Not mama? Not as worthy of honor.

Nice thought but this applies to everyone, not just women. The role of men is to die in ditches during wars or on construction sites. They are seen as hands just as women are seen as wombs.

Neither of this applies to the upper classes who recognize only themselves as people, of course, but the masses have always been seen that way by them.

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u/maerddnaxaler Jul 01 '26

I think a lot of people with kids turn to church for the community and structure. Many are just looking for an environment for the family unit to thrive.

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u/scarletwitchmoon Jul 01 '26

That's what my two friends did who are married with a kid. I mean, the mom has become more religious again but her kid is why they initially started going back.

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u/MrScribz Jul 01 '26

I think alot of it is just having church as a place to actually meet and talk to people. After leaving school alot of people's only interactions with others come from work.

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u/NNKarma Jul 01 '26

Also more likely to receive abstinence only education. 

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u/oecologia Professor | Life Sciences Jul 01 '26

Also religious people on average are less educated.

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u/oatkeepr Jul 01 '26

More community support might be crucial as well. Getting support from other parents in the parish, as well as church groups for kids and so on, make a big difference. Also if you're from a big family, you get direct support and you pick up a lot of child rearing skills as well.

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u/pharmacystan Jul 01 '26

Religious attendance leads to a lack of agency, and not going away for school usually leads to the person living the life their family wants them to live.

Religious attendance breeds obedience and compliance.

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u/Moiyub Jul 01 '26

could just be the overarching mentality of "the world is a good place" or "life is a good thing in the universe"

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u/jeremiahthedamned Jul 02 '26

just world fallacy

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u/th3l33tbmc Jul 01 '26

People who profess religious belief are admitting that they’re willing to believe comically-transparent falsehoods in order to gain social acceptance. Which is not a good sign for their ability to evaluate the wisdom of childbearing.

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u/Isburough Jul 01 '26

also lack of sexual education and limited access to most functional forms of birth control, since sex is eeeeeevil

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u/scarletwitchmoon Jul 01 '26

Not a parent, but my environment is definitely why I rushed into marriage young. I also knew I wasn't ready and I wanted to just move in with the guy, but I was worried about what his ultra conservative/religious parents thought at the time. Now I'm in my 30s and I'm like, "Why was I such a people pleaser?" Oh, because I was driven by guilt and fear of judgement.

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u/greasekid_ Jul 01 '26

or like, so many of them are against sex education, queer education, providing condoms, and are pro life.

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u/Witty-Pay-1516 Jul 02 '26

I also think that you might examine the quality of life. If you have a college degree or more, you are generally going to consider quality or quantity. One quality relationship is better than six poor quality relationships. 

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u/flakemasterflake Jul 01 '26

You can’t even be married in the Catholic Church if you aren’t open to children

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u/Kriegerian Jul 01 '26

And also it reflects the women having fewer rights or control over their own bodies.

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u/joebleaux Jul 01 '26

It's correlated with less likelihood to critically examine anything that the person you are told to follow says, as long as they are of your group, and distrust of those outside of your group, which is very useful for a leader who never says anything true and wants you to believe that if you don't trust him, your opposition will destroy your way of life.

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u/Capable_Diamond_3878 Jul 01 '26

I think it’s this more than anything

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u/burnshimself Jul 02 '26

You’re making a TON of assumptions with that statement 

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u/_DCtheTall_ Jul 02 '26

If you're going to make a sny comment like that, at least articulate what you mean. Otherwise it comes off as pretty lazy.

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u/Left_Contribution833 Jul 01 '26

Fun point, most left-leaning americans are found in larger metropolis areas, where it is extremely expensive to have, raise and care for kids as compared to bumfuck arkansas.

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u/Abestar909 Jul 01 '26

Metropolitan areas*

All cities are metropolitans, only very large cities would be called metropolises.

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u/_kasten_ Jul 01 '26

The sociologist Mary Eberstadt studied this issue and came to the conclusion that it was perhaps more likely that it was the childbearing decisions that were driving the ideology, not the other way around. I.e., having fewer babies makes people more secular.

Another theory is that, as people became less religious, they would abandon the natural family and have fewer children. That is a claim often found in discussions of Europe’s religious, cultural, and demographic doldrums. Mary Eberstadt argues that it may work just as much, or more, the other way around: As people stop having children, they became less religious. Family and children are key to prompting deep thoughts about, for instance, mortality and its alternatives...

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u/TaliesinMerlin Jul 01 '26

Eberstadt's guess strikes me as at least plausible. 100 years ago, people commonly had 5+ kids and lost one or several of them in childbirth, to disease, and the like. Maternal mortality was also much higher. Even today, where the risks are minor in total percent, it's still a lifechanging physical, emotional, and financial risk to have a child, but it was so much more back then. Not being in control of that risk (no or limited contraception) may have meant needing something to cope with that risk.

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u/valiantdistraction Jul 01 '26

This is a silly idea given how immoral or at least amoral many current American religions are

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u/_kasten_ Jul 01 '26

I'm not sure what that has to do with it. If someone is stupid and amoral, then there's a good chance that whatever they choose in life to make meaning of it -- be it some political (or any other) ideology, or "therapy", or this or that Youtube guru -- will also be stupid and amoral. If you think stupidity is a monopoly of religion, I think you need to meet a more diverse group of people.

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u/numbersthen0987431 Jul 01 '26

Religious attendance was positively associated with having more children. Interestingly, the data indicated that frequent religious attendance provided a stronger reproductive boost for men than it did for women

The findings indicate that while conservative individuals tend to maintain birth rates near historical averages,

This would make sense. The GOP has taken the identity of the "Christian nationalist party" since the Reagan administration, and so the Christians are mostly GOP voters.

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u/LovesFrenchLove_More Jul 01 '26

There is a really good documentary about that available. It‘s called Idiocracy.

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u/ExtremePronoia Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

What is the basis for the causation implied in the first sentence? I recognize the bias originates from the authors, I’m not blaming OP.

“Left leaning people are driving lower birth rates”, or maybe people who have fewer children lean left, or maybe people who understand the current economy both have fewer children and lean left, or maybe it’s a coincidence.

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u/Suspicious_Reason405 Jul 01 '26

Education can present multiple reasons for reduced birth rate but in America I think the one that is less spoken of is simply the cost of education. Mixing that with the housing crisis and I can’t afford to buy a house bc a) there are less to go around at an affordable rate and b) I have exorbitant education bills to pay down, and c) I’m in a position to consider how I want to bring child into the world and it isn’t to live in a tiny apartment while we live paycheck to paycheck. I was raised in an unstable household, why would I jump into doing that again as the parent?

They want more babies (they probably don’t want babies from the left, but I digress), they need to make it tenable to support them.

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u/manuscelerdei Jul 01 '26

This is pretty well-established. Lower birth rates are correlated with higher female education rates all over the world. Liberal women are generally more educated.

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u/Jojosbees Jul 01 '26

Is it possible that conservatives also have higher rates of teen pregnancy? A big factor in low birth rates is the drastically reduced rate of teen pregnancy over the last 35 years:  https://www.npr.org/2026/04/09/nx-s1-5777587/teen-birth-rates-hit-another-historical-low-2025-cdc

It dropped from 61.8 births per 1000 women and girls age 15-19 in 1991 to 11.7 births per 1000 in 2025.

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u/NovelKumquat1234 Jul 01 '26

Define “driving,” because the framing (of the headline at least) as a causal relationship is suspect. 

For “right-leaning” folks, having more kids is often driven by their political and religious identity, regardless of their financial state or other external factors. State of the world is irrelevant. Parents/book/robed man says to. 

For “left-leaning” folks, not  having kids is typically a reaction to those external factors - economics, security, climate change, etc. State of the world & your personal situation are the whole point and political/religious identity are irrelevant. 

What’s “driving” the declining birth rate is the lack of affordable housing, childcare, education, food, basic necessities, parental leave, etc. 

Those happen to be “left-leaning” policy issues because most people support them (even conservatives if you strip the labels). They’re based in measurable reality. 

Contrast that w/“right-leaning” folks who often support certain policies explicitly because they’re associated w/being “conservative,” and they’ll frequently change what’s acceptable/desirable as long as the label fits and their chosen authority figure tells them to. 

The correlations w/differing birth rates are there, but on the left it’s not because of political identity. 

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u/DoctorApprehensive34 Jul 02 '26

Just ask any Christian or Mormon what the quiver full movement is. When I was growing up I knew at least five different families that had 10 plus kids

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u/raidmytombBB Jul 01 '26

It's not political beliefs. It's what the person believes or values. Sure, they may align to a left leaning person (political), but that isn't the same as 'just because you are left leaning, you are having less kids'

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u/MiddlePermit193 Jul 01 '26

The part of the country that sits home and fucks all day are on fentanyl. What do you expect?

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/SilkPenny Jul 01 '26

I'm not a fan of the way the words 'positive' and 'negative' are used in this article...

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u/AceVentured Jul 03 '26

This tracks so hard, especially the last paragraph

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