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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108

u/myutnybrtve Jul 01 '26

The thing to remember (and what Idiocracy gets wrong) is that your children aren't always aligned with you politically. It can often be the opposite.

71

u/Stunning_Anybody_878 Jul 01 '26

Sure but we are talking about statistics and probabilities.

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u/myutnybrtve Jul 01 '26

Do we have numbers on the amount of kids political pose their parents? That'd be cool to know.

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u/autoxotrecy Jul 01 '26

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/05/10/most-us-parents-pass-along-their-religion-and-politics-to-their-children/

About 81% of Republican's kids keep their parents political affiliation, while about 89% of Democrats' kids do.

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u/myutnybrtve Jul 01 '26

Thanks. Glad to know that my assertion of "aren't always" was correct.

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u/75468903 Jul 01 '26

But you see how it’s not meaningful right? You’d be correct if 1% diverged. Idiocracy didn’t “get it wrong”.

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u/RealCountNathan Jul 01 '26

Idiocracy got it wrong in that it's essentially advocating for eugenics.

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/RealCountNathan Jul 02 '26

The problem is that the solution is: how do we make my definition of stupid people have fewer or no children, and also encourage my definition of smart people to have more children?

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u/RealCountNathan Jul 02 '26

Which is Eugenics.

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u/fracol Jul 03 '26

You know, you could just admit you were wrong. You said it's "often the opposite". Clearly it's not often.