What are the differences
between "blue states" and
"red states?" There are
many, of course. People in blue states,
for example, tend to be richer and better
educated, and to drink more expensive
coffee. But here is another point of
contrast that has far deeper implications
for the future of the nation's culture
and politics. People in blue states
tend to have far fewer children.
Indeed, if one looks at all the states
that voted for John Kerry in 2004 and
thinks of them as a nation unto themselves,
that nation has a European-level
fertility rate of just 1.86 children
per woman, which is far below the
level needed to replace the population.
Meanwhile, in Bush Country, fertility
rates are some 12 percent higher.
Producing an average 2.08 children
per woman, Bush Country has the
highest fertility rate of any industrialized
nation on earth.
It wasn't always this way. One hundred
years ago, progressives like Mary
Harris "Mother" Jones embraced the
"family wage," "maternal feminism,"
and many other policies designed to
protect the family from the predations
of capitalists and an increasingly global
economy.
During the 1930s, prominent progressives,
such as Franklin D.
Roosevelt's Labor Secretary Frances
Perkins, denounced an economic system
that forced mothers of young children
into factories and clerical jobs.
Common sense suggests that working
class supporters of the New Deal had,
on average, more children than the
economic royalists who opposed it. It's
thus no surprise that, in defense of the
family, Perkins and other New Dealers
structured programs such as Social
Security so that they would reward
and protect married women who took
the economic risk of being full-time
mothers.
Yet sometime in the 1960s, the
connection between progressivism
and defense of the traditional family
began to break down, with consequences
that today are leading to
progressives around the world being
quite literally out-bred by those who
adhere to more conservative values.
Fortunately, if Democrats can
remember and revive their pro-family
politics of the past, they may once
again broaden their appeal and halt
this trend.
But first, progressives must
acknowledge the problem. Today, a
remarkable feature of our politics is
that people on the left have significantly
fewer children than those on
the right, and by and large don't see
any problem with that. Being on the
left has come to have less
to do with whether you
must struggle to feed
your children, and more
to do with how you feel
about abortion, environmentalism,
gender equity,
gay rights, church attendance, and
the questioning of traditional family
values.
This pattern holds not only in the
United States but in all advanced
societies these days. In Western
Europe, for example, polling data has
revealed correlations that many
Americans will recognize in their own
life experience. Demographer Ron J.
Lesthaeghe has found that people in
Europe who distrust the military;
who seldom, if ever, go to church;
who support environmentalism,
minority rights, legalized abortion,
and other "progressive" issues, are far
less likely to have children than those
who take opposing views.
In the United States, we see such
correlations between fertility and political
stance most clearly in the election
maps. For example, in eight states, 60
percent or more of all non-Hispanic
white women ages 25 through 29 have
no children. They are Massachusetts,
in which 70 percent of such women are
childless, followed by New Jersey,
Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island,
California, Colorado, and Maryland.
All but one of them -- Colorado --
voted for Kerry. In contrast, in eight
other states, 40 percent or less of non-
Hispanic white women ages 25
through 29 are childless. These are
Arizona, West Virginia, Indiana,
Kentucky, Idaho, Mississippi, Utah,
and Wyoming -- all solid Bush states.
Similarly, such indicators as a state's
average age of first marriage, its percentage
of unmarried heterosexual
couples, and its percentage of same-sex
households correlate very strongly
both with its overall fertility and with
its voting patterns. For example, the
areas of the country where Kerry prevailed
in 2004 are the same areas
where age of first marriage is highest
and children are fewest. Conversely,
George W. Bush got the largest share
of votes in areas where cohabitating
unions are comparatively rare and
children plentiful. In a bastion of
Democratic liberalism like Seattle,
there are nearly 45 percent more dogs
than children. In a stronghold of religious
conservatism like Salt Lake City,
there are 18 percent more children
than dogs.
There are many reasons why progressives
should be alarmed by these
trends. First, of course, is the simple
danger of demographic decline. Today,
because of the unprecedented increase
in the number of childless adults and
single-child families, the next generation
is being produced by a comparatively
narrow, and for the most part
very conservative, segment of the population.
But there are also deeper reasons
why progressives need to rethink
their attitudes toward children and
human reproduction generally. Put
bluntly, progressives have much more
at stake than conservatives do in promoting
pro-natal policies, even if these
policies are not specifically pointed at
raising the birthrates of progressives
themselves.
One reason, as we can see starkly
today in Europe, is that low birthrates
make financing the welfare state increasingly
difficult. Progressives who like to
start sentences with the phrases like, "In
Sweden, they ..." should look at how
that country has been compelled in
recent years to slash pension and other
old-age benefits to compensate for its
low fertility rate.
In the United States, the fact that
birthrates have drifted much lower
than the levels anticipated by the
architects of Social Security and
Medicare has created huge unfunded
liabilities in those programs. Part of
the reason progressivism flourished in
the 1960s and 1970s was that so many
people thought the baby boom would
go on forever, making programs like
Medicare and wage indexing for Social
Security seem affordable.
A stereotype about progressives
holds that the reason they have fewer
children is that they are too selfish or
self-absorbed. Maybe some are. Others
may be so keenly aware of the planet's
problems, from the threat of nuclear
war to environmental degradation,
that they despair of bringing more
children into the world. But
the broader and more obvious
truth is that most progressives,
just like everyone else, do want
to have children, and would
welcome government help in
smoothing the tensions
between work and family.
So would many people who
today vote Republican, but
who have little material benefit
to show for it. As Ross Douthat
and Reihan Salam observed last
November in the conservative
Weekly Standard: "Despite the
fact that families with children
are among the most reliable
Republican constituencies, President
Bush has done surprisingly
little to address their needs."
Indeed, about the only measure
Bush has taken to benefit parents
was a minor provision in
the 2001 tax cut package that
increased the size of the child
tax credit, from $600 to
$1,000.
Yet perhaps the greatest lesson
progressives can learn
from these sobering demographics
is that they should
not fall into the trap of being
perceived as the anti-family
party. There is, after all, nothing
about religious fundamentalists
or social conservatives that
makes them inherently Republican,
much less inherently committed to
tax cuts for the rich or pre-emptive
wars. What is irreducible is their
commitment to family. They will
ultimately swing to whichever party
seems to defend and promote the
family the best, which could be the
Democrats, if the party responds to
these compelling demographics.
Defending the family could -- and
should -- once again become an important
part of the progressive agenda.
What Mother Jones wrote in her autobiography
is still true today: "All the
average human being asks is something
he can call a home; a family that is fed
and warm.
