Babyless blue states
September 20, 2024
As if our culture weren’t already coming apart at the seams, there could be a new battle line emerging soon: Blue states seem to be trending toward childlessness while red states are becoming more fecund.
A future culture war that pits the parental class against the child-free class will not be pretty.
We’re not there yet — Democrats still have plenty of children, and Donald Trump’s rise has roped plenty of unmarried, childless men into the Republican Party. But every day, there are hints that we are heading in this direction.
“Parents are not generally moving towards states with the preferred family policies of progressives,” reported demographer Lyman Stone and sociologist Brad Wilcox in mid-September. “They are moving out of these states, including Democratic states, like New York, California, Massachusetts, and Oregon, all well known for their liberal family policies.”
