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.

  • Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    How long before we are just mass growing babies in petri dishes and decanting bottles on an assembly line like brave new world?

    • foxwolf@pawb.social
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      That’s way more expensive than forcibly impregnating imprisoned women. Once we put all these psycho lefties into the camps, there will be plenty of worthless childless women who can be put to work restocking our wage-slave peasant numbers. They’re currently working on the means by which to round them up. We got official “trump derangement syndrome” diagnoses in the works. We got impossibly high prices on everything, which forces people to do crimes of survival. Anyone saying any left wing thoughts can be imprisoned for life on terrorism charges. They already started doing the life imprisonment for people who have ever written down anything left of center, but they’re still working on forced identification of everyone on the internet. Once the “age verification” shit gets worked out and they know exactly who posted what, it’ll be super easy to round up all the lefties.

      • Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca
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        1 day ago

        Eventually the only escape will be suicide. If it came down to it, I’d end things on my terms rather than be enslaved to be a baby maker.

    • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      1 day ago

      Considering the attack on IVF, I don’t think that’s what conservatives have in mind for the solution to this supposed problem.

      • Nutteman@lemmy.world
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        Yeah they clearly plan on the easier, cheaper, and more vile option: forcing pregnancy onto people via denial of access to contraceptives

    • finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Who Wants to Grow a Baby?

      Pilot episode.

      “Joel, you’ve had some experience in this arena before. Willing to let us know where Sample 1 stands?”

      “Sure, Candy!”

      sip sip sip

      swish swish swish

      spit

      “This semen has a smoky flavour, but not from the test tube it was stored in. It’s more acrid, and heavy with PFSAs than you’d expect, leading me to conclude it comes from the southern Arizona region. Historically, sibling pairing has been noted in that area, and this drop doesn’t do anything to disabuse me of the notion the donor is, indeed, the offspring of brother and sister. All in all, a fairly inexpensive affair, but still unable to justify the price tag. One to be avoided, I think”.