When Politics Enters the Family: Electoral Outcomes and Fertility in the United Kingdom

Łukasz Baszczak () and Ewa Weychert
Additional contact information
Łukasz Baszczak: University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences
Ewa Weychert: University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences

No 2026-17, Working Papers from Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between political outcomes and fertility behavior by linking electoral results with individual-level fertility outcomes in the United Kingdom. Drawing and the narrative decision-making framework (Vignoli et al., 2020; Johnson, Bilovich, & Tuckett, 2023) and the role of political polarization in fertility outcomes (Dahl et al. 2022) it considers how alignment between one’s political preferences and the actual party in power shapes fertility behaviour. Specifically, the study tests whether this alignment increases the probability of a first birth using longitudinal data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) over the period 1991–2020. We derive the month of conception from respondents’ birth histories and combine this information with measures of their political preferences (extrapolated to account for every month in the studied period). The results of a complementary log-log model indicate that the probability of conception is higher when an individual’s preferred party is in government.

Keywords: fertility; uncertainty; narrative decision theory; voting behavior; United Kingdom (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 J13 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.wne.uw.edu.pl/download_file/68ecac4e-f ... e0-27091d581807/4282 First version, 2026 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:war:wpaper:2026-17

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jacek Rapacz ().