Differential fertility makes society more conservative on family values

Tom S. Vogl () and Jeremy Freese
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Tom S. Vogl: Department of Economics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093; National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA 02138
Jeremy Freese: Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2020, vol. 117, issue 14, 7696-7701

Abstract: Data from the General Social Survey indicate that higher-fertility individuals and their children are more conservative on “family values” issues, especially regarding abortion and same-sex marriage. This pattern implies that differential fertility has increased and will continue to increase public support for conservative policies on these issues. The association of family size with conservatism is specific to traditional-family issues and can be attributed in large part to the greater religiosity and lower educational attainment of individuals from larger families. Over the 2004 to 2018 period, opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion was 3 to 4 percentage points more prevalent than it would have been were traditional-family conservatism independent of family size in the current generation. For same-sex marriage, evolutionary forces have grown in relative importance as society as a whole has liberalized. As of 2018, differential fertility raised the number of US adults opposed to same-sex marriage by 17%, from 46.9 million to 54.8 million.

Keywords: fertility; public opinion; cultural evolution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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