Perspective: The geography of fertility — where are the babies?

Blue states are better for families — at least that’s what many academics and journalists contend. In their book “Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture,” law professors Naomi Cahn and June Carbone argued that blue states have the liberal values and policies they believe make for strong and stable families. Likewise, Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell recently claimed that progressive family policies in Democratic states like Minnesota provide “evidence that one major party cares about children and families; and the other does not.”

Their assumption is that blue states are more family friendly in part because they boast progressive policies like universal pre-K, free school lunches and paid family leave that lend direct state support to the care of kids. Moreover, blue states’ commitment to higher education, an egalitarian family life and delayed family formation is also a plus in Cahn and Carbone’s book as they believe all this stabilizes family life in America.

But is the blue-state family model working outside the halls of academia and the pages of The Washington Post — in other words, in the real world?

There are mounting signs the answer is “no.”

A recent Institute for Family Studies study found parents are much more likely to move out of blue states and into red ones than vice versa. In 2021-2022, roughly 180,000 more families left blue states for red states than vice versa. The migratory appeal of red states to ordinary families with children is certainly one strike against the idea that blue states are more family friendly than red ones.

Beyond mobility trends, where are Americans most likely to have babies? Again, the answer is red states. Republican states (those that Trump won in 2020) generally have markedly higher fertility rates than Democratic ones (those that Biden won), suggesting that more men and women feel confident about starting and raising families in red states than blue ones.

According to the latest CDC data, the highest total fertility rates in 2023 were found in red states like South Dakota (2.01), Texas (1.81) and Utah (1.80). By contrast, blue states such as Vermont (1.30), Oregon (1.35) and California (1.48) lag well behind when it comes to childbearing. In fact, the top 10 states for fertility in 2023 were red states, and the bottom 10 states for fertility were blue states. So, while progressive commentators like Rampell celebrate blue-state policies like paid parental leave and free school lunches that are supposed to help families, it’s clear that families are voting with their feet — and their family planning decisions — for states without those policies.

The red-state advantage regarding fertility can be chalked up to several cultural, policy and economic factors. Economically, red states typically offer more affordable housing, hotter job markets and lower taxes, all of which appeal to young and middle-aged men and women aiming to start or grow their families. Culturally, red states are more likely to prioritize marriage and family life, offer parents more educational choices and show a greater commitment to law and order, which are plusses to many family minded Americans. The family friendly culture of many red states also seems more likely to turn the hearts and minds of young adults to marriage. These financial and cultural features of red-state life end up being more important than the suite of avowedly pro-family policies of their blue counterparts.

The family success of red states would surprise demographers Frances Goldscheider and Linda Waite, who wrote a book back in 1991 called “New Families, No Families?: The Transformation of the American Home.” In their view, the only path forward for American family life was a progressive one, where “new families” dedicated to an egalitarian family ethos and engaged family men would keep men and especially women interested in forming families. By contrast, they believed a more conservative approach to family life would lead ordinary men and especially women to stop having families, largely because they assumed conservative men would be less engaged with family life. In their words, “American Society confronts a profound choice: to create ‘new families’ or be left with ‘no families.’”

But what Goldscheider and Waite did not anticipate was that the “new” commitments to education and career and expressive individualism —what we call the “Midas Mindset” found in many young men and women today — are more likely to dominate blue states. This mindset encourages young adults to delay or forego forming families and pushes blue states in the direction of the “no family” model. By contrast, many red states, especially ones where religious faith is strong (like Utah), prioritize the value of getting married and focusing on your family rather than putting most of your eggs in the baskets of work and self. Evidence suggests that religious fathers and husbands — more likely to be found in red states — prioritize marriage and family life, including housework, in ways that make family life more appealing to the women in their lives. This is not what Goldscheider and Waite would have predicted.

In fact, the gap between blue and red state births has fallen by 38% since 2015. The birth gap between the states that voted Republican and Democratic in the past presidential election has fallen from about 475,000 births in 2015 to approximately 294,000 births in 2023. This, again, is a testament to a dynamic where the economies and family friendly cultures in red states are not only giving them an advantage in their fertility rates but, if current trends hold, in absolute births in the next 15 years.

Of course, even red states are struggling more today than they once did on the family formation front. Most red states have fertility rates that are below the replacement rate of 2.1 babies per woman. Utah’s fertility rate, for instance, fell from being above replacement, 2.33, a decade ago, in 2014, to 1.80 in 2023. Of late, even young men and women in the Beehive State are less likely to aspire to or feel like they can access marriage and family life. Even in conservative states like Utah, both the Midas Mindset and the falling financial and social fortunes of young men have made the path to marriage less appealing and attainable.

The bottom line is both blue and red states have work to do to create a culture and a family friendly economy for their young adults, one that would steer more states to a sustainable rate of family formation — about 2.1 babies per woman. But if current fertility trends are any indication, Democratic states will have to work much harder to revive the fortunes of family life in their borders. That’s because trends in family migration and fertility suggest the blue-state family model is more family unfriendly than the red one to Americans interested in starting, growing or raising a family.