Conservatives take over the world

[cmotherofpirl]

The liberal baby bust By Phillip Longman
Tue Mar 14, 6:56 AM ET



What's the difference between Seattle and Salt Lake City? There are many differences, of course, but here's one you might not know. In Seattle, there are nearly 45% more dogs than children. In Salt Lake City, there are nearly 19% more kids than dogs.


This curious fact might at first seem trivial, but it reflects a much broader and little-noticed demographic trend that has deep implications for the future of global culture and politics. It's not that people in a progressive city such as Seattle are so much fonder of dogs than are people in a conservative city such as Salt Lake City. It's that progressives are so much less likely to have children.


It's a pattern found throughout the world, and it augers a far more conservative future - one in which patriarchy and other traditional values make a comeback, if only by default. Childlessness and small families are increasingly the norm today among progressive secularists. As a consequence, an increasing share of all children born into the world are descended from a share of the population whose conservative values have led them to raise large families.


Today, fertility correlates strongly with a wide range of political, cultural and religious attitudes. In the USA, for example, 47% of people who attend church weekly say their ideal family size is three or more children. By contrast, 27% of those who seldom attend church want that many kids.


In Utah, where more than two-thirds of residents are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 92 children are born each year for every 1,000 women, the highest fertility rate in the nation. By contrast Vermont - the first to embrace gay unions - has the nation's lowest rate, producing 51 children per 1,000 women.


Similarly, in Europe today, the people least likely to have children are those most likely to hold progressive views of the world. For instance, do you distrust the army and other institutions and are you prone to demonstrate against them? Then, according to polling data assembled by demographers Ron Lesthaeghe and Johan Surkyn, you are less likely to be married and have kids or ever to get married and have kids. Do you find soft drugs, homosexuality and euthanasia acceptable? Do you seldom, if ever, attend church? Europeans who answer affirmatively to such questions are far more likely to live alone or be in childless, cohabiting unions than are those who answer negatively.


This correlation between secularism, individualism and low fertility portends a vast change in modern societies. In the USA, for example, nearly 20% of women born in the late 1950s are reaching the end of their reproductive lives without having children. The greatly expanded childless segment of contemporary society, whose members are drawn disproportionately from the feminist and countercultural movements of the 1960s and '70s, will leave no genetic legacy. Nor will their emotional or psychological influence on the next generation compare with that of people who did raise children.


Single-child factor


Meanwhile, single-child families are prone to extinction. A single child replaces one of his or her parents, but not both. Consequently, a segment of society in which single-child families are the norm will decline in population by at least 50% per generation and quite quickly disappear. In the USA, the 17.4% of baby boomer women who had one child account for a mere 9.2% of kids produced by their generation. But among children of the baby boom, nearly a quarter descend from the mere 10% of baby boomer women who had four or more kids.


This dynamic helps explain the gradual drift of American culture toward religious fundamentalism and social conservatism. Among states that voted for President Bush in 2004, the average fertility rate is more than 11% higher than the rate of states for Sen. John Kerry.


It might also help to explain the popular resistance among rank-and-file Europeans to such crown jewels of secular liberalism as the European Union. It turns out that Europeans who are most likely to identify themselves as "world citizens" are also less likely to have children.


Rewriting history?


Why couldn't tomorrow's Americans and Europeans, even if they are disproportionately raised in patriarchal, religiously minded households, turn out to be another generation of '68? The key difference is that during the post-World War II era, nearly all segments of society married and had children. Some had more than others, but there was much more conformity in family size between the religious and the secular. Meanwhile, thanks mostly to improvements in social conditions, there is no longer much difference in survival rates for children born into large families and those who have few if any siblings.


Tomorrow's children, therefore, unlike members of the postwar baby boom generation, will be for the most part descendants of a comparatively narrow and culturally conservative segment of society. To be sure, some members of the rising generation may reject their parents' values, as often happens. But when they look for fellow secularists with whom to make common cause, they will find that most of their would-be fellow travelers were quite literally never born.


Many will celebrate these developments. Others will view them as the death of the Enlightenment. Either way, they will find themselves living through another great cycle of history.


Phillip Longman is a fellow at the New America Foundation and the author of The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What to Do About It. This essay is adapted from his cover story in the current issue of Foreign Policy magazine.

[Paladin]

Yeah, it's tough to teach your kids liberal values when they don't exist. :

[OLAM Dad]

Where is this published?

Common sense has always suggested this to be the case but I've yet to see it discussed in the 'major media' outlets.

[blovedwolfofgod]

victory is ours... we just need to breed them out!

[kateri05]

muahahaha

[YMNolan]

very interesting. i've never considered this.

[Paladin]

[quote name='OLAM Dad' date='Mar 15 2006, 11:01 AM']Where is this published?

Common sense has always suggested this to be the case but I've yet to see it discussed in the 'major media' outlets.
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Surprsingly, it was on [url="http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060314/cm_usatoday/theliberalbabybust;_ylt=Ang_jXmYT0HKb4V14UoQB.MDW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl"]Yahoo[/url].

[Iacobus]

Strange that FP doesn't have anything (Ever) by a Phillip Longman or about birthrates or anything close to that one their cover right now.

[Daniel9]

[quote name='blovedwolfofgod' date='Mar 15 2006, 08:01 AM']victory is ours... we just need to breed them out!
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Sounds good to me!

[Thy Geekdom Come]

Procreate and Dominate :

That's heard from time to time at FUS...

[MissScripture]

[quote name='OLAM Dad' date='Mar 15 2006, 10:01 AM']Where is this published?

Common sense has always suggested this to be the case but I've yet to see it discussed in the 'major media' outlets.
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That might be because, in general, most of them are fairly liberal...they probably don't want to think about the fact that they may die out...

[littleflower+JMJ]

as one of our old time, legendary pmers have said, "How do you conquer the world? Overpopulate it!" lol

i really find it ironic how everyone ignores these facts and really are living on an agenda that will die out itself. Some countries are already in major trouble for this. It just goes to show how right the Church and faith is on family and life and how wrong the world is as well.

[Maria]

Be careful, though. The Catholics in Holland had the idea that they were going to breed the Protestants out, too. Then the Dutch Catholics went funny (thought that their situation was so unique that things didn't apply to them), and, as everyone knows, Holland is one of the most liberal of countries.

[Socrates]

Great article, Cmom!

Where I live, most of the "conservative" Catholic families have lots of kids, and this has helped create a rapidly growing Catholic presence in the area.

I've heard lots of people talk about this, often half-jokingly, but this is one of the first "mainstream" articles I've seen which discusses this trend.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Maria' date='Mar 15 2006, 05:02 PM']Be careful, though. The Catholics in Holland had the idea that they were going to breed the Protestants out, too. Then the Dutch Catholics went funny (thought that their situation was so unique that things didn't apply to them), and, as everyone knows, Holland is one of the most liberal of countries.
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That should be a warning against Catholics "going funny"!