MAGA Women Defy the Birth Dearth

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While Democrats are increasingly the party of the childless, Republicans are increasingly the party of parents.​

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Something of a baby boom is happening at the White House. Vice President JD Vanceand his wife Usha announced last week that they are expecting their fourth child, a boy. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Katie Miller, the wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, are also pregnant. White House deputy chief of staff James Blair and his wife, Sam, are expecting a baby in March.
These unborn babies have already attracted a fair bit of partisan commentary. Vanity Fair described the Vances as “Pronatalism’s Poster Couple” and points out that Ms. Vance’s pregnancy announcement was posted on X.com, “a social network owned by fertility-crazed Elon Musk.” Slate suggested that this pregnancy was an attempt to appeal to the MAGA base, since while the choice to have four children “doesn’t have to be conservative-coded, it tends to skew that way.”

In historical terms, this surprise at the fertility of the White House seems odd. American presidents and vice presidents have often had large families, regardless of party affiliation. Historically, six or more children isn’t unusual for families who have occupied the White House. But then, having babies didn’t used to be a partisan matter.

A strange thing has happened to U.S. fertility patterns in recent decades. In the 1970s, there was little to no partisan difference in birthrates. This was an era when the total fertility rate was still hovering around the magic replacement level of 2.1—that is, the average woman could be expected to have 2.1 children across her lifetime, keeping the size of the population stable. The U.S. total fertility rate plummeted to a new low of 1.63 in 2024.

A partisan fertility gap has emerged and seems to be growing. Conservatives have more children than liberals. They also are more likely to marry and marry younger. While Democrats are increasingly the party of the childless, Republicans are increasingly the party of parents.
The Institute for Family Studies has found a strong relationship between support for President Trump during the 2020 and 2024 elections and birthrates at the county level. Counties in which less than 25% of voters opted for Mr. Trump in 2024 had a median total fertility rate of 1.31. In contrast, counties in which the vote share was more than 75% for Mr. Trump had a rate of 1.84. That might not sound like much, but across time, it’s a big difference.

Exactly why this is happening is a complicated question. For two years I’ve been working on a book on falling birthrates, a phenomenon that is sometimes called “the birth dearth,” or “the depopulation crisis.” Over the past half-century, birthrates in almost all of the richest countries in the world have fallen below replacement.

Now it’s happening in less-rich countries, too. Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Thailand and Turkey are among those that are both poorer and less fertile than the U.S. Researchers estimate that by 2050 more than three-quarters of countries won’t have fertility rates high enough to sustain their population over time. Only in the poorest parts of the world are birthrates still moderately high. But even there, fertility is falling fast.

The popular explanations for why birthrates are falling don’t work. For those who blame feminism, Iran’s total fertility rate of 1.6 is a problem. For those who blame liberalism, North Korea’s rate of 1.8 is a problem. For those who blame a lack of state-funded child care, Norway’s rate of 1.4 is a problem. People who enjoy lives of material abundance unimaginable to their ancestors complain that they don’t have the material resources to bring even one child into the world, while the very poorest countries are maintaining above-replacement fertility.
Whatever the cause of depopulation, we can nonetheless see some suggestive patterns emerging that indicate how the world is likely to change in the coming decades.

Birthrate data show that the partisan gap isn’t unique to the U.S. A recent analysis by the Financial Times indicates that, across the developed world, conservatives are having almost as many children as they were a few decades ago. It’s on the progressive left where birthrates are tumbling. Something about conservatives makes them resistant to the depopulation effect, at least for now.

We might not know exactly why birthrates are changing in this way, but we can still make some educated guesses about how this will affect politics in the future. Twin studies suggest that political attitudes are roughly 40% heritable. Of course, children do sometimes diverge from or react against their parents’ politics. But in general, expect the partisan fertility gap to usher in a U.S. that is more conservative. In fact, the whole of the developed world is on track to become more conservative.

In this sense, the commentators who interpret Ms. Vance’s pregnancy as “conservative-coded” are correct. Whether or not any of the women of the Trump administration are deliberately using their pregnancies as a political statement (and I’m inclined to think they aren’t), all these White House babies are symbolic of a phenomenon that ought to worry progressives.
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If you’re not making babies, you might be far left.
 
Upvote 20
Does Low T correlate (not cause, correlate) to low birth rates?
 
Im no biologist but i wouldnt be surprized to find that ladies on birth control create low t dudes as there is no need for all the extra t if it goes to waste.
 
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I just saw research today that the pill affects women's brains, so they no longer feel "safe" when they should feel safe. And apparently the effects linger after going off the pill.

I could see just that alone reducing the birth rate. Besides the 2nd order effect of
Negatively affecting marriages.

So glad I never touched the stuff.

In addition, BPA (in plastics) affects fetuses, even in tiny amounts, causing hormonal changes. With globalization, I can only imagine the same kinds of "useful, cheap" products are used all over the world - except maybe the poorest countries.
 
My observation and theory is that women naturally want to date upwards. Women have also been the majority of university graduates for a decade now, and corporate affirmative action policies have brought minorities and women into the workforce ahead of white men.

So your typical liberal women wants to date upwards, but there are very few men who actually fit list of their requirements.

Secondarily, any parent wants to give their child at least as good as up bringing as they themself had. The past 10-15 years have been getting shittier and shittier, so it’s getting harder and harder to meet that goal. And it’s not just financial related. If you’re a liberal, 2016-2020 there was orange man bad, 2020-2022 was the pandemic, 2022-2024 was Russia planning to Nuke the world, and now 2024 to present we’re back to orange man bad. So a decade of things being seemingly worse then the 1990’s and early 2000’s.
 
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