Climate Concern and Americans’ Ideal Number of Children: The Moderating Role of Religious Involvement

Samuel L. Perry

Social Science Quarterly, 2025, vol. 106, issue 3

Abstract: Objective It is a growing narrative that some Americans want fewer ono children because of climate change concerns. Yet Americans’ childbearing views and intentions remain powerfully influenced by their involvement with religion. I theorize children figure into different schemas of social problem‐solving for secular and religious communities and thus religious involvement will moderate any link between Americans’ climate concerns and childbearing ideals. Methods Focusing on Americans of childbearing age in the 2021 General Social Survey, I estimate regression models predicting the ideal number of children with interaction terms for climate change concern, religious involvement, and parental status. Results In the main effects, climate concern is not significantly associated with Americans’ ideal number of children. However, among Americans who rarely attend worship, climate concern is negatively associated with their ideal number of children. In contrast, Americans who attend worship at least monthly report a higher ideal number of children as climate concern increases. Triple interactions further reveal this pattern applies to childless Americans specifically. Ancillary analyses show similar moderating patterns for religion measures like prayer frequency and religious importance. Conclusions I discuss the implications of these findings for understanding how climate concern shapes Americans’ thoughts about childbearing within the context of growing secularization.

Date: 2025
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