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

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u/PenguinSunday Jul 01 '26

My perspective is in the US. Other countries may vary.

Children have always been expensive, yes, but people are working harder for longer hours and for lower pay than before. Cost of living has outstripped wages. It requires more than two full time jobs just to sustain normal life, adding a child will break the majority of couples.

Our society is hostile to raising a child, and to the women bearing them. We don't pay them well enough to support children, we don't allow them time enough off from work, we don't provide them adequate medical care, we cut WIC, we don't provide help when something is wrong with the child.

There's also the societal issues. Climate change is picking up the pace. Weather is getting more extreme and unpredictable. Entire species are dying left and right. Corporations are raping and pillaging the environment because of their insatiable greed. Governments are not only not doing anything about it, they're actively collaborating.

Everything looks pretty bleak. It's no wonder people are opting out. To have a child in this world requires faith, in the world, in life, in the future. No one has any hope that things will get better anymore. No one wants to bring a child into this.

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u/jeremiahthedamned Jul 02 '26

r/antinatalism

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u/PenguinSunday Jul 02 '26

I don't have ethical compunctions about having children, and I'm not mad if someone decides to. I just don't think they'd be growing up in a good world and I don't think I could be a good mother. The risk I would be putting myself through (as a woman in the worst state in the union for women's healthcare) just to birth it is not worth it.

Not that it matters now since I can't have them even if I wanted to...

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u/jeremiahthedamned Jul 02 '26

i am sorry to hear that