The left is not as sustainable as the conservatives — and the gap in number of kids is growing rapidly. By John Hinderaker at Powerline.
When I was growing up, four children was an average number. Catholic families often had eight or ten. But those days are gone. Now, there are fewer children across the board, but we can all observe that it is liberals, in particular, who have few if any. …
Conservative women, on average, have nearly twice as many children as liberal women:
Over the last 45 years, fertility has plummeted among liberals, while actually increasing among conservatives. Why is that? In general, the reasons are obvious. Optimists have children, pessimists don’t. Conservatives are more optimistic, in today’s world, than liberals. Happy people are more prone to have children. Conservatives are notoriously happier than liberals. (That is a post for another day.) Religious people are more inclined to have children. The reasons go on and on.
Liberals are well aware of the fertility gap. They try to make up for it in at least two ways: immigration and indoctrination. They think that immigrants and their descendants are likely to vote for them, and they control the public schools, so they can indoctrinate pretty much at will. Those strategies are by no means ineffective. But immigrants, lately, have been disappointing the liberals, and indoctrination has only limited effectiveness, as young people, especially young men, have been turning to the right.
Conservative fertility actually increased over 40 years, showing the power of pronatal culture on one side! …
Conservatives and liberals live together in the same America, but their social views have moved in opposite directions. That makes this a great if imperfect demonstration of how strongly ideas shape birthrates.
David Archibald:
It is bizzare that a most basic biological function can be so readily be hijacked by culture.
Extremely conservative men 35-45 now have almost 4x as many children as extremely liberal men.
