Partisan Fertility Effects

= "Politics and fertility have some clear relationships". [1]

Discussion

Darel Paul:

"Why are Western women rather suddenly giving up on children? Policy-oriented answers from the think-tank world run the gamut from daycare affordability to housing prices to male wages to marriage rates. Far less attention has been paid to political causes. A social science literature on partisan fertility drawing data from several countries over the past 20 years shows that politics can have fertility effects as large as social and economic shocks, primarily downside effects on the women whose political parties lose. With the strong left-wing politicization of 20- and 30-something Western women together with the simultaneous rise of right-wing populism across the rich democracies, a political feedback loop has emerged with the potential to confound policy efforts and drive fertility continually lower.

Politics and fertility have some clear relationships. In both the United States and Europe, those on the political right have the highest lifetime fertility. European data suggests that right-wing people also intend to have more children in the near future than do centrists or those on the political left. This wasn’t always the case. Prior to the 1990s, Americans on the far left had a fertility advantage, but this disappeared as the left shed its association with the material interests of the working class and defined itself instead by the cultural interests of professionals.

The relationship between politics and fertility is not only general and long-term. Social science research shows that election results can trigger highly partisan fertility effects."

(https://www.compactmag.com/email/19731308-48bd-4c1a-b4f0-e1c537598e18/?)