The Breeders

In today's Journal Arthur C. Brooks crunches the numbers on the difference between Right and Left when it comes to reproduction:

Consider future presidential elections in a swing state (like Ohio), and assume that the current patterns in fertility continue. A state that was split 50-50 between left and right in 2004 will tilt right by 2012, 54% to 46%. By 2020, it will be certifiably right-wing, 59% to 41%. A state that is currently 55-45 in favor of liberals (like California) will be 54-46 in favor of conservatives by 2020--and all for no other reason than babies.

The fertility gap doesn't budge when we correct for factors like age, income, education, sex, race--or even religion. Indeed, if a conservative and a liberal are identical in all these ways, the liberal will still be 19 percentage points more likely to be childless than the conservative.

This pattern holds true when I consider personal experience.

My single friends are more often liberal, and the married ones have frequently changed to be more conservative, or were that way from the start. This is by no means a universal rule, and there are some thoughtful and interesting exceptions - such as young conservatives who have a vigorous intellectual understanding of history as a result of contending with quasi-socialist professors - and conversely, older folks with grown children and a Volvo bumper full of lefty causes - folks frequently quite engaged in community and service to others.

Justin Gardner at Donklephant thinks that issues like abortion and gay rights are going to decrease in significance over time, and the phenomenon will "even out". Like many self-professed moderates (myself included) he himself much feels less strongly about the conservative social agenda than about rightward positions related to economics and foreign policy.

But regardless of my own biases, I'm not convinced that people who vote their religious faith are going to be a constricting demographic. Brooks' numbers seem like less of an opinion and more of a fact: The red states have growing, powerful blocks of church-going, baby-making folks, and in the bluest neighborhoods of America all of the nuevo upscale bohemians own an expensive bike, a pair of exotic shoes, and an iPod - but a child in a stroller is a rare thing.

Tags: Demographics, Arthur C. Brooks, Red States, Blue States