The Future is Republican

[August1991]

Take a randomly selected sample of 100 liberal adults and 100 conservative adults. According to an analysis of the 2004 General Social Survey -- a bible of data for social scientists -- the liberals would have had 147 kids, while the conservatives would have had 208. That's a fertility gap of 41 percent. Even adjusting for other variables like age and income, there is a gap of 19 percent.

Now superimpose this on a map of the United States. The highest fertility rate is found in the most Republican state, Utah, home to the Mormon Church. The lowest fertility belongs to Vermont, a state liberal enough to be the first to sanction gay unions.

....

But wait, you may say: the attitudes of the parents don't determine what ideology or political party their offspring will adopt as their own. Yet they usually do.

Political scientists have long found that 4 out of 5 people with a party preference grow up to vote the way their parents voted. In fact, while many people experience a temporary rejection of their parents' politics in very early adulthood, virtually nothing is more predictive of your political ideology than that of your parents -- it's more of a determining factor than income, education or any other societal yardstick.

SFGate

How do Hispanics vote?

[Riverwind]

nothing is more predictive of your political ideology than that of your parents -- it's more of a determining factor than income, education or any other societal yardstick.

If that was true then nothing would ever change. We accept things today that would have been unthinkable in the 50s. Look at how Quebec has changed - according to your logic the seperatist project is doomed to fail for exactly the same reasons.

[Liam]

This is all hooey. Vermont, like several northern states, has a declining birth rate because its population is aging. It's cheaper to buy a home in Florida than in Michigan, so young couples in their child-bearing years (both liberals and conservatives) are migrating to the sun belt while the more-established, middle aged folks stay up north. It's a stretch to say that because surrently-Red states have higher fertility rates that a next generation of GOP-bots is on the rise. Plenty of the people adding numbers to southern, Red states are northern liberals and moderates.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear August1991,

How do Hispanics vote?

Manana. (Hmm, can't seem to get the tilde over the 'n'...)

Seriously, though, I expect Riverwind is right

If that was true then nothing would ever change. We accept things today that would have been unthinkable in the 50s

and I think the line between 'liberal and conservative', especially socially (rather than fiscally) is blurrier every day.