On November 18, 2020 (i.e., 15 days after Trump lost the presidential election to Biden), demographer Lyman Stone noticed something interesting: “the relationship between fertility rates and voting patterns was very clear.”

Four years later, this phenomenon has deepened even more (and not only in the USA). And of course this has consequences for the future of Western countries.

Wait, wait… What does fertility and voting have to do with each other? It seems like more than we could have ever imagined. In 2020, the most Democratic counties had total fertility rates about 25% lower than most Republican counties.

And in fact, as Stone points out, “the effect was underestimated in these data because many of the pro-Trump counties were small, rural counties that typically have higher birth rates and were excluded from this analysis.” for the 600 largest counties in the country).

Well then. We now know that this trend has grown over these four years: “While only 8% of the fertility difference between districts was explained by voting rates in 2012, this figure increased to 26% in 2024.”

So why is this particularly surprising? Because, although the percentages have changed slightly in these last elections, “Democrats are doing very well in counties with many Hispanic and black voters who have higher birth rates than non-Hispanic white Americans.” In fact, “the more non-Hispanic whites a county has, the lower its birth rate.”

Logic tells us that the relationship should be inverse: The more Democrats there are, the higher the birth rate. But not.

The United States was “divided not only by its political views but also by its values ​​and attitudes toward reproduction and child-rearing, that is, its views on family life.” And more and more.

So why does this happen? We are not very clear. This kind of analysis doesn’t allow us to talk about ‘causation’: “We don’t know whether being conservative increases fertility rates or whether having babies makes people more conservative.” Stone argued that existing evidence shows us that causality flows in both directions (but there are many more variables to consider).

Does this represent a “long-term victory” for conservatives? Not exactly. Children’s political beliefs are only “moderately related” to those of their parents.

However, in the short-to-medium term, this trend has political consequences: After all, the increasing polarization of the family model may affect the political platforms of subsequent election cycles.

Pictures | Fibonacci Blue

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