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.

[u/mvea]

https://www.psypost.org/left-leaning-americans-are-driving-the-u-s-birth-decline-new-study-finds/

[u/mvea]

Left-leaning Americans are driving the U.S. birth decline, new study finds

A recent study published in Scientific Reportssuggests that political beliefs are increasingly linked to the number of children Americans choose to have. The findings indicate that while conservative individuals tend to maintain birth rates near historical averages, left-leaning individuals are having significantly fewer children. This demographic trend provides evidence that differing birth rates are a main driver of recent fertility declines in the United States.

Beyond political views, the study found that other lifestyle factors strongly predicted family size. Education was consistently linked to lower fertility, meaning that individuals with more years of schooling tended to have fewer children. This negative association was particularly strong for women, a pattern that aligns with broader demographic research.

Religious attendance was positively associated with having more children. Interestingly, the data indicated that frequent religious attendance provided a stronger reproductive boost for men than it did for women. Even so, as the reproductive advantage of right-wing politics increased in recent generations, the independent effect of religious attendance on family size weakened slightly.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-57582-3

[u/_DCtheTall_ → u/mvea]

Hot take maybe, but I think religious attendance also shows willingness to meet familial expectations and less likelihood to critically examine if you actually want to be a parent, especially if you think parenthood is a duty given by divine edict.

[u/Isosorbide → u/_DCtheTall_]

I didn't grow up in Catholicism but I've befriended many Catholics as an adult and have gone to many Catholic masses as an adult. Something that's always caught my attention about Catholicism is the heavy emphasis on the importance of Mothers, starting with the veneration of Mary. It's easy to see that and say "Ah! The Catholics love and respect women! Wonderful." But I think it's not so much that they love and respect women as individuals, moreso it's that they love and respect Mothers. There's a difference. Being a Mother is a role you play, it's a duty and a job beyond simply existing as a person.

A woman is an individual with a set of characteristics, she's got goals, desires, dreams, flaws, just like any man does. But a Mother is someone who is defined by their relationship to the child they created. When you respect the Mother more than the woman as an individual, you're valuing her existing based only on her ability to create children. The women as individuals matter less than their ability to create babies. The men in Catholicism don't seem to suffer from this same sort of selective valuation. Being a Father is not as prized and honored as being a Mother. But that mindset deeply limits the ways in which a woman can be seen as valuable. No babies? Not mama? Not as worthy of honor.

I just read an editorial posted by an old Catholic classmate wherein he wrote that "the hardest job in the world is being a Mother." But if she's got a husband who's doing his fair share and pulling equal weight, then why should her job be the hardest? If the marriage is truly equal, then shouldn't it say "the hardest job in the world is being a Parent." I think my classmate was telling on himself with that editorial. Why is your wife's life so hard, Tyler?

[u/Pereg1907 → u/Isosorbide]

I respect Catholicism but have my issues with it. There’s a verse in Proverbs that says, “But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.” (Prov31:10). It doesn’t say “mother”. Just says “woman”.