Partisan Divergence in Fertility Change Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Florida

Heather M. Rackin (), Christina M. Gibson-Davis (), Courtney E. Williams (), Dustin Hughes () and Seunghwan Yoo ()
Additional contact information
Heather M. Rackin: Louisiana State University
Christina M. Gibson-Davis: Duke University
Courtney E. Williams: The University of Texas at Austin
Dustin Hughes: Western Washington University
Seunghwan Yoo: Louisiana State University

Population Research and Policy Review, 2025, vol. 44, issue 5, No 6, 38 pages

Abstract: Abstract Motivated by political-based differences in pandemic perceptions, this study analyzed whether Republican- and Democratic-leaning counties exhibited differential fertility shifts, leading to a partisan fertility gap. As COVID-19 emerged, the political right dismissed the threat of the virus, while the political left emphasized it as a major crisis. These contrasting views may have led to diverging fertility responses between those living in Democratic- and Republican-leaning areas. Using county-level data from Florida, difference-in-difference models predicted quarterly change in fertility rates between 2018 and 2022. Models estimated the partisan fertility gap (e.g., Republican-Democratic difference in fertility rate changes relative to before the pandemic) as a function of 2020 Trump vote share. The partisan fertility gap widened during the pandemic’s early months, as fertility in Republican-leaning counties declined less than in Democratic-leaning counties. This gap was only observed for White women and was robust to controlling on time-varying potential confounders (unemployment rate and racial composition changes). The partisan gap was short-lived, however. Results suggest that politically-charged contexts where would-be-parents lived may have affected pandemic-induced fertility shocks and demonstrates the need to understand fertility changes in the context of the broader political environment—a vital endeavor given record-low fertility and unprecedented political polarization in the United States.

Keywords: Fertility; Voting; COVID-19 pandemic; Political identity; Polarization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11113-025-09972-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:kap:poprpr:v:44:y:2025:i:5:d:10.1007_s11113-025-09972-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... es/journal/11113/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11113-025-09972-0

Access Statistics for this article

Population Research and Policy Review is currently edited by D.A. Swanson

More articles in Population Research and Policy Review from Springer, Southern Demographic Association (SDA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().