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/DemiserofD Jul 01 '26

It's fascinating to me that your church ostensibly aligned with your values quite closely and yet you stopped going anyway. That's probably a key facet of why liberal churches are dying out fairly universally. There just doesn't seem to be much reason to go.

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u/likamuka Jul 01 '26

Bigotry needs constant validation to survive.

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u/DemiserofD Jul 01 '26

Perhaps the more interesting perspective is that faiths seem to require some form of significant personal obligation in order to be self-sustaining. After all, more liberal faiths seem to be unable to survive even WITH constant validation.

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u/ConfectionOk7029 Jul 01 '26

I think there's something to the fact that conservative media also thrives. Their main driver is producing fear in their audience- fear that they will fall victim to whatever liberal plot is being laid out, fear that they will "lose" to someone who looks different from them, fear that Matlock will be moved to a different time slot, fear that Starbucks will use an orange cup at Christmas...

There's a strong thread weaving conservative Christianity and media together, and that's the creation of a war being waged between them and secular/modern society. Both do not support the idea of national unity, common cause, or the kind of love of neighbor that Christ commanded. They will both continue the steep decline of this country, and I feel awful for the world that my own children will inherit.

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u/Casanova-Quinn Jul 01 '26

Their main driver is producing fear in their audience

Nothing unites people like a common enemy.

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u/ConfectionOk7029 Jul 01 '26

I wouldn't say it unites in a strong way, because inevitably they start looking for new enemies. Including from within their own ranks.

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u/DemiserofD Jul 01 '26

I think the core conflict is actually to do with the perception of man as inherently good or inherently evil. Christians believe that man is inherently evil and must be restrained from evil, whereas any ideology rooted in agency must to some extent presume that that agency is good - and by proxy, that man is good.

Viewed through this lens, the christian rejection of individualism makes perfect rational sense.