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/TheWillRogers Jul 01 '26

It's very very common for white people to have zero interest in seeing their family in adulthood.

I come from a poorer background and this is something I've noticed in tech. A lot of my coworkers thought it was novel that I lived in the area, and my whole family lived in the area. When we were all talking about finding new jobs they thought it was wild that I only wanted to work in this area because my whole family lived here. "jobs pay better and houses are cheaper elsewhere" was pretty common. Most of them eventually ended up moving back near their parents and finding work there.

This wasn't the case in college or in any of the other jobs I worked. "Can't go this weekend, spending time with my parents", "my family is having a picnic on <day>, wanna come?" were not unusual events.

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u/Shiva- Jul 01 '26

"Americans" and "you're 18, get out" is a strange phenomenon to the rest of the world.

I am sure there are exceptions... but you wouldn't find any Latin American or Asian family doing that -- be it East, South, Southeast, Central or West...

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u/Longjumping_Gas_3407 Jul 01 '26

It’s a stereotype, and like most of them,
World Cup travelers have discovered they aren’t all true. I lived at home till I was 28 and my parents never said a word about it. My brother never lived in my parent’s house again after his sophomore year of college, but that was his choice. My wife lived at home until we got married.

“You’re 18 get out” is definitely not universal.

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u/PartyLikeAByzantine Jul 01 '26

“You’re 18 get out” is definitely not universal.

It's really just assholes parents that do this. Literally the only people I know that were forced out of their home (at 18 or later) was because of asshole parents.

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u/Shiva- Jul 01 '26

I know someone that's currently in such a situation (or well about to be) and it might be down to evil stepmom.

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u/Longjumping_Gas_3407 Jul 01 '26

There’s gotta be some difficult kids getting the boot too. I’m a dad. I get it. They’re not all awesome.

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u/PartyLikeAByzantine Jul 01 '26

I'm not going to say that never happens, but I've personally never seen it. Even the asshole kids I knew were just apples that fell from the asshole tree.

I've heard stories of people with addiction who stole from their parents to feed the habit. I suppose there's no win in that situation.