Fertility and Voting
Steve Sailer at The American Conservative notes a remarkable fact: A state's fertility rate among whites is an astoundingly good predictor of Bush's vote share for that state. The fertility rate is a snapshot meant to measure, roughly, the average number of children per woman. The actual formula is the number of births divided by the number of women between the ages of 15 and 45, multiplied by 30 (the number years between 15 and 45). Got that? Sailer writes
If the cultural divide really is connected this strongly to fertility, and child's political opinions are positively correlated with the parent's (it doesn't need to be perfectly correlated) then this is very good news for the future of conservatism.
The future belongs to the fertile.
Bush carried the 19 states with the highest white fertility (just as he did in 2000), and 25 out of the top 26, with highly unionized Michigan being the one blue exception to the rule. (The least prolific red states are West Virginia, North Dakota, and Florida.)
In sharp contrast, Kerry won the 16 states at the bottom of the list, with the Democrats’ anchor states of California (1.65) and New York (1.72) having quite infertile whites.
If the cultural divide really is connected this strongly to fertility, and child's political opinions are positively correlated with the parent's (it doesn't need to be perfectly correlated) then this is very good news for the future of conservatism.
The future belongs to the fertile.
posted by Harsh Pencil | 12/06/2004 10:11:00 PM
Yes, but it could also be true that the fertility of Muslims in western europe could cause the next great wave of European immigration to America. Hmmmm.... on the other hand, I do not recall Europe ever having a tradition of religious tolerance. Thus, perhaps, Islam will ever only get so far in Europe before the hammer falls....(if anyone can name an example of such a tradition let me know.)
A collorary to this point is one that James Taranto of Opinion Journal calls 'The Roe Effect'. In summary, he makes the point that blue-staters will, on average, have more abortions, thus leading to fewer children that will take on the pro-abortion views of the mother, and ultimately increases the consevativism of the resultant population.
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