Conservative Baby Boom, Liberal Baby Bust

In a trend that�s found worldwide as well as in the U.S.: Liberals are much less likely to have children than conservatives.

That trend "augers a far more conservative future � one in which patriarchy and other traditional values make a comeback, if only by default,� Phillip Longman, a fellow at the New America Foundation, writes in an essay in USA Today.

"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.�

Conservatives, most of whom are pro-life, are also less likely to have abortions than are their politically liberal counterparts. Liberals, in essence, may be killing their own future through abortion.

Longman points to these figures:

In the U.S., 47 percent of people who attend church weekly say their ideal family size is three or more children, but only 27 percent of those who seldom attend church feel that way.

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. Vermont � the first state to embrace gay unions � has the nation's lowest rate: 51 children per 1,000 women.

The average fertility rate in states that voted for President Bush in 2004 is more than 11 percent higher than the rate in states that voted for Sen. John Kerry.

Demographic data show that in Europe today, progressives who say they find soft drugs, homosexuality and euthanasia acceptable are far more likely to live alone or be in childless, cohabiting unions than those with more conservative views.
Longman also points out that nearly 20 percent of American women born in the late 1950s are reaching the end of their reproductive lives without having children.

Therefore, "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,� writes Longman, author of "The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What to Do About It.�

He concludes that tomorrow's children "will be for the most part descendants of a comparatively narrow and culturally conservative segment of society.�

The USA Today essay was adapted from a story in Foreign Policy magazine