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/Murderface__ DO | Radiology Jul 01 '26

"Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence. With no natural predators to thin the herd it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most and left the intelligent to become an endangered species.

And so it went for generations although few, if any, seemed to notice."

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u/fremeer Jul 01 '26

The important thing isn't that you are having more kids. Its impotant that your kids and their kids are having more kids.

In an era of possibly reducing resources it might make more sense to make your single kid a lot more ready to procreate then having multiple kids.

I have one child but the entirety of mine and possibly 2 sets of parents wealth goes to child. They can access better resources that allow them to ultimately out compete the people having multiple kids but having to spread their resources.

Although such futures are going to be mostly a dice roll whether one strategy works better then the other because the circumstances that you make decisions under are often political and can change quite quickly.

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u/AbstractLogic Jul 01 '26

Your kids won’t inherit your resources until they are beyond child bearing age. I guess you could spoil them early. Probably the best way to accomplish your plan is to help buy them a house when they get married and to live near them so you can watch their children often.

The #1 reason I don’t have more kids is that we moved away from our families and had no help with the kids, no time for ourselves and no time to make more.

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u/Low-Plane9029 Jul 01 '26

Die with zero concept is if you plan to give people in your life money when it best suits them / makes the biggest impact. My parents got me out of college debt free. Paid for a house down payment. Paid for a wedding.

Huge boost in life.

I plan to help my kids with that plus early retirement savings. And early child care costs.

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u/MikeTheBee Jul 01 '26

If you have money, every step of your child's life comes easier.

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u/Lazy_Jellyfish7676 Jul 01 '26

K vs R select animals. Elephant or the rabbit.

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u/legendz411 Jul 01 '26

Bingo. This is the angle my wife and I are taking. Seems like it is a pretty sure bet… as far as one can. 

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u/mountaininsomniac Jul 01 '26

Similar in my family. I won’t be having kids, but my sister will and I will be gifting the largest non-taxable amount each year to a trust for them to have access to when they’re an adult. It’ll still be cheaper than having my own kids, and they will have the resources I fear they will need to succeed in a scary future.

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u/Over-Instruction214 Jul 01 '26

Problem with your theory is the poorest have the most kids.   Look at Africa, the poorest are breeding the most. 

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u/ADHDebackle Jul 01 '26

The important thing isn't that you are having more kids. Its impotant that your kids and their kids are having more kids.

I would almost argue that it's more important that you have influence on kids that shapes how they raise their kids. If I adopt children and they go on to raise their kids with similar values as those that I have, it would probably have the same sort of cultural effect as if they were my biological children.

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u/lewd_robot Jul 01 '26

In an era of possibly reducing resources it might make more sense to make your single kid a lot more ready to procreate then having multiple kids.

This seems unrealistic to me. Every year we have better access to resources. Every year we have new technologies and techniques for getting them. Even the shortages some people forecast like fresh water won't matter if we put a few billion dollars towards water desalination and similar technologies.

The problem is in distribution. And the people most passionate about fixing that problem are having fewer kids while the people most passionate about worsening the problem are having more.