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A recent study published in Scientific Reports suggests 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.
The data revealed a pronounced change in how political beliefs relate to family size. For individuals born in the early 1900s, political orientation had almost no association with the number of children they had. However, beginning with the cohort born between 1943 and 1947, a massive divergence emerged.
“We expected these results, but not to such a dramatic extent,” Fieder told PsyPost. From the mid-century cohorts onward, individuals with right-wing political views maintained birth rates at or slightly above the replacement level. The replacement level, typically considered to be 2.1 children per woman, is the rate needed for a population to replace itself from one generation to the next without immigration.
In contrast, the birth rates of left-wing individuals dropped sharply, falling well below the replacement level in the more recent cohorts. The authors noticed this drop aligns with historical changes in family planning. “We found that the gap began with the introduction of modern contraception,” Fieder said.
Well this is a problem
Not one we can solve without controlling women.
Edit: I’m against controlling women’s reproductive rights.
I disagree. We can solve it by better supporting mothers and children societally and addressing affordable housing and economic equality.
That’s not what studies are showing.
Women do not want to have as many children as society demands. And with access to reproductive health choices and birth control, women are choosing to delay pregnancy and have fewer children.
That stuff would be good and we should better support families, but that’s not the cause of the falling birth rates.
Crazy what better family supports do
https://www.chosun.com/english/market-money-en/2026/02/25/G4PCHX7R7RE4PHXM5RMJJLDOEY/
When women have access to education, career opportunities, and contraception, birth rates drop.
We assessed the quantitative impact of education and family planning in high‐fertility settings using a regression framework inspired by Granger causality. We found that women’s attainment of lower secondary education is key to accelerating fertility decline and found an accelerating effect of contraceptive prevalence for modern methods. We found the impact of contraceptive prevalence to be substantially larger than that of education.
Widespread use of contraceptives and, to a lesser extent, girls’ education through at least age 14 have the greatest impact in bringing down a country’s fertility rate.
Three mechanisms influence the fertility decision of educated women: (i) the relatively higher incomes and thus higher income forgone due to childbearing leads them to want fewer children. The better care these women give increases their children’s human capital and reduces the economic need for more children; (ii) the positive health impacts of education, on both women and their children, mean women are better able to give birth and children’s higher survival rate reduces the desire for more; and (iii) the knowledge impact of education means women are better at using contraceptives. For developing population policies, it is thus important to understand these impacts on income, health, and knowledge, and their influence on fertility decisions in the specific country context.
I don’t see this as a problem. Let the birthrate fall.
I don’t see it as a problem either. Let women have the control over our bodies that we fought so hard for and let us shape our families the way WE want, not what some religious zealots afraid of immigration want.
Did you read the article you sourced?
Women delaying when they have children is a huge factor.
Yes, I guess you cherry picked out these parts
Having seen and experienced this first hand in this instance, the level of supports for new families have made a difference
It’s made a difference in combination with women delaying when they start having children due to better access to education and contraception.
That’s why it notes that this is probably a short-lived birth rebound. Because of the ages of the parents having children.
Edit:
I didn’t cherry pick it out: “Expanded marriage and childbirth incentives from central and local governments also contributed.” is in my comment. It’s not my fault you didn’t read it thoroughly.
If you don’t have a way to compare since our country is total garbage at providing said support, how would you know?
Because this affects me, I’m not American
Because other developed countries arent as total garbage at providing said support.
And they can’t possibly have any other factors that would have an effect right?
If I link studies showing the different things that affect fertility and birth rates, would you actually read it?
Countries like Finland have robust social security nets and support. Their rates are falling, too. I could name a bunch of other countries that have better support for families and they are also seeing falling rates.
But I’m not going to put in the work if you’re just going to be dismissive and not read anything because you’d rather believe it’s all the economy.
Wait…why do you think I believe it’s the economy? Unless you’re using a very loose definition of economy…
There seem to be some countries trending upwards and some downwards.
So just post two relevant links. That’s not a lot.