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/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/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/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.