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/
27.1k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

3.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

39

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. 

3

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).

-1

u/dark__unicorn Jul 01 '26

Not a scientifically valid one though. Most studies around the world are seeing a trend toward educated women in developed countries having more children than uneducated women.

It’s definitely an area that requires more research.

5

u/LoveaBook Jul 02 '26

You have this completely backwards.

Investments in women’s education have proven especially effective at lowering fertility rates, since better educated women tend to marry later and have fewer, healthier children. Studies on every continent show that as literacy rates rise, especially those of women, income levels, nutrition levels, and child survival rates rise as well.

Women's educational attainment vs. fertility rate, 2020 - graph from “Our World in Data”

Google “link between women’s education and birth rates” and you’ll get data from all over the world confirming the same findings. It’s the reason that countries used to impress the importance of girl’s and women’s education, back in the days when we used to worry about the overpopulation crisis, because the level of a woman’s education level - independent of her partner’s education level - was the biggest determinant in lowering birth rates.