USA Today has a very interesting article on political demography. Readers of Mark Steyn will find much of it familiar, and the author, Phillip Longman, adds more domestic insight. In short, traits that are generally identified with liberal politics correlate strongly with low birth rates. Future voters, therefore, will be more likely to have been born from conservative parents.
In Seattle, there are nearly 45% more dogs than children. In Salt Lake City, there are nearly 19% more kids than dogs. [...]
Among states that voted for President Bush in 2004, the average fertility rate is more than 11% higher than the rate of states for Sen. John Kerry. [...]
Tomorrow's children, therefore [...] will be for the most part descendants of a comparatively narrow and culturally conservative segment of society. To be sure, some members of the rising generation may reject their parents' values, as often happens. But when they look for fellow secularists with whom to make common cause, they will find that most of their would-be fellow travelers were quite literally never born.
The article has lots of fascinating stats, give it a read. I’ll do my best to refrain from mentioning the Roe effect.
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Update: Austin Bay has some good critical questions on the above, and also points out that the USA Today editorial is an excerpt from a longer article by the author.
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