Shall the Right-Wingers Inherit the Earth?
Concrete Evidence (June 29, 2026)
Among folks born a century ago, self-identified conservatives and liberals had similar numbers of kids. But that changed for the cohorts born between the midpoint of the 20th century through 1982, the group that most recently completed its childbearing years.
In these later cohorts, conservatives managed to hold their fertility above the replacement rate of 2.1 children, according to an analysis of the General Social Survey set to be published in Scientific Reports. Liberals dipped well below it, averaging around 1.8 kids.
Being evolutionary anthropologists, the authors report that “increasing directional selection” may “favor right-wing political orientation over time.” That is, to the extent that parents pass their ideology to their kids, today’s fertility patterns could sculpt tomorrow’s politics.
What’s driving the study’s results? A skeptic might raise the possibility of reverse causation: If having kids makes people more conservative instead of the other way around, this could throw off the analysis. The survey asks respondents how many kids they’ve had and what their political leanings are at the same time, rather than following the same individuals for many years.
As the authors discuss, however, this is not likely to be a full explanation, based on studies using other datasets. Having kids does make parents a little more conservative—but ideology predicts how many kids someone will have long ahead of time, too. In general, ideology tends to be pretty stable throughout adulthood and appears to have somewhat of a genetic basis.
Further, there are straightforward reasons why conservative ideology would go along with greater fertility. “Liberal orientations are typically linked to greater individualism, egalitarianism, and acceptance of childfree lifestyles, all of which correlate with delayed or foregone childbearing,” the authors note. “By contrast, conservative orientations emphasize family values, religiosity, and traditional family roles, which encourage higher fertility.”
Two other recent pieces of research help to fill in the picture.
One, from our friends over at the Institute for Family Studies, presents a new survey revealing gaps between liberals and conservatives in their attitudes toward parenting. Nearly a fifth of liberals aren’t sure if they’d be good parents, versus only a tenth of conservatives. Liberals are also more likely to see parenting in a negative light, worry about passing on heritable conditions to their kids, and see their mental health as not good enough for them to have kids.
The other, based on a longitudinal survey from the U.K., finds that people with environmentalist beliefs are more likely to delay or eschew having kids. For respondents past the age of 40, each point on a five-point environmentalism scale corresponded to being about a percentage point or two less likely to have children, even after controlling for other demographic characteristics.
But why would the relationship between politics and fertility change among those born across the two halves of the 20th century? My bet would be on the shifting cultural, political, and technological landscape. Birth control and abortion, for example, enhanced the importance of consciously wanting to have children, likely helped to polarize fertility politically, and created new possibilities for career-focused women.
Politics, of course, isn’t the only thing on which the more and less fertile differ. The Scientific Reports study also measures effects of education and religiosity that are more consistent over time: Americans who are more religious and less educated have more kids.
As the natalist slogan goes, the future belongs to those who show up for it. Apparently, they’ll represent a skewed sample of those who exist today.
From the Manhattan Institute
Santiago Vidal Calvo examines whether America’s immigration, transportation, security, and lodging systems are prepared to accommodate the millions of visitors arriving for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Other Work of Note
Did the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act boost employment?
Data centers might actually make electricity cheaper on average.
What happens when states ban racial preferences in contracting?
Big claims about GLP-1s’ effects on women’s romantic and employment prospects.
Using machine learning to identify dinosaur tracks.
How much sway do high-school counselors have over kids’ choice of college major?
The growing suburbanization of the black population.
Does the U.S. have an especially progressive tax system? See this analysis from the Fraser Institute plus these comments from Emily Kraschel of the Tax Foundation.
“We find evidence of sizeable genetic influences on many outcomes, including cognitive performance, fertility, risk tolerance, smoking, and subjective wellbeing, and of more limited genetic influences on educational attainment and income.”
Check out the Crime Index, with up-to-date (plus historical!) crime trends for hundreds of cities.
Unsurprisingly, legalizing pot reduces arrests for drug-law violations and disciplinary incidents on college campuses.
At least in Dutch data, sex differences in preferences and personality seem to explain a lot of occupational sorting.
Yet another minimum wage study.
Quantifying how tight labor markets help workers.
What can AI startups tell us about which jobs will be threatened by the technology?
This study compiles and analyzes most of the local ordinances throughout the entire U.S. And the new dataset is public!
The effects of requiring age verification for online porn.
How railroads have shaped Mexican immigration to the U.S.
How improved health and longevity affect Medicare and Social Security.
On the flipside: The proliferation of embryo selection will raise IQs, and higher IQs are predictive of liberal beliefs.
Ideocracy