With “Population Bomb” (1968) days well behind us, many now understand that humanity is currently plagued with low birthrates. The typical understanding is that while fecundity may still characterize some Third World nations, developed countries’ populations aren’t replacing themselves. Yet while this is true, there’s some important nuance here. That is, who, in let’s say the U.S. (current fertility rate {FR}: 1.79), is responsible for the baby bust?

It turns out that with an FR of ~2.1-2.3 (replacement level: 2.1), conservatives are doing just fine. And liberals?

Not so much.

With a FR of ~1.6-1.7, they may be gradually disappearing.

And, say some analysts, their “values” may disappear along with them.

There was a time when liberals and conservatives were more alike than today. In the 1960s, for example, they largely agreed on what constituted proper sexuality and marriage. Neither group thought you could switch “genders” (in fact, both groups used the correct term, “sex”) at will. And they both agreed on judging people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

Another similarity is that as recently as the ’70s, both libs and cons had similar FRs: approximately 2.1-2.5. But while conservatives’ rate has declined only slightly, liberals’ rate has absolutely cratered, as the chart below illustrates. Note that this trend extends beyond the U.S. and to the entire developed world. (Also note: Variations between the rates below and what I cited above are attributable to reliance on different data sources.)

And the following chart illustrates the ideological component further: The more left-wing, the greater the childlessness.

Financial Times reporter John Burn-Murdoch addressed the political implications of this issue recently, writing Friday that

the consequence of this emerging ideological slant in birth rates is that each successive generation gets nudged rightwards, increasing the likelihood that conservative politicians … get elected.

A fascinating paper from @MartinFieder suggests this pattern may have already shifted western societies towards the right over recent decades (not necessarily in absolute terms, but relative to the counterfactual where progressive birth rates held firm).

A 2020 research article at PNAS.org further defined this phenomenon’s effects, stating:

Traditional-family conservatism is more prevalent than it would have been if each person had the same population share as his … parents. This demographic phenomenon raises opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion by 3 to 4 percentage points. It accounts for 7.9 million of the nation’s 54.8 million opponents to same-sex marriage.

So what accounts for this lib/con birth chasm? One factor: As “Progressive” demographer Phillip Longman pointed out years ago, more “religious” people tend to have more children. (As to this, I personally know two devout Catholic couples with 19 kids between them.) And, well, conservatives are generally far more religious than liberals are.

To understand the matter even more deeply, however, consider information from the fine 2008 documentary Demographic Winter. As I wrote while reviewing the work at the time, it

tackles five main reasons for the drop in fertility: the sexual revolution, prosperity, the divorce revolution, inaccurate assumptions, and women working…. Demographic Winter mentions the pill, which has reduced unwanted pregnancies among married women by 70 percent; promiscuity, which affords men sexual gratification without commitment; reluctance to have children when there is the possibility one’s spouse won’t be around in a few years; and career-driven women having few children; along with other factors. Demographic Winter also touches on materialism and immaturity, which make people reluctant to assume the responsibilities of parenthood.

And while the above phenomena plague our time generally, they’re epitomized by liberals. Consider:

As for prosperity, that’s probably a neutral factor ideologically. But then there are those “inaccurate assumptions.” This refers to fallacious beliefs regarding man’s “negative impact” on the Earth.

As to this, it’s liberals who tend to believe in anthropogenic global warming. “Oh, I don’t want to be part of the problem and have kids,” they’ll say. Liberals are often misanthropic, believing man is a pox upon the planet. It’s liberals who are, awash in negativity, most likely to say, “I don’t want to bring children into this world.” Underappreciated is that “this world” has never been much better. For most of history, in fact, people lived with the threat of barbarian invasions, famine, and/or pestilence wiping out their entire family. Why, if you had 12 children 500 years ago, only five might survive to adulthood.

So does all this mean “progressivism” is going the way of the dodo? Well, it’s not that simple.

First, our culture shapers — academia, the once-mainstream media, entertainment, and big tech — are adept at indoctrinating the young with leftism. Second, things tend to move toward disorder without a continual application of energy. And what we call “leftism” is essentially, as I’ve illustrated, movement toward moral disorder. This gets at, too, why being “conservative” isn’t enough.

G.K. Chesterton once noted, “The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.” And true to form, young conservatives today tend to be socially liberal. To provide an example in just one sphere of issues, they generally accept same-sex “marriage” and subscribe to many other sexual devolutionary norms as well. In other words, they’re defending a status quo — that was established largely by yesteryear’s liberals.

So to sum up, yes, robust birthrates are important. More important still, however, is for people’s hearts and minds to be reborn in Truth.