The Washington Times pointed me to this piece by Phillip Longman in the March/April issue of Foreign Policy, which includes the following:

[N]early 20 percent of women born in the late 1950s are reaching the end of their reproductive lives without having had children. The greatly expanded childless segment of contemporary society, whose members are drawn disproportionately from the feminist and countercultural movements of the 1960s and '70s, will leave no genetic legacy. . . .Nor do single-child families contribute much to future population. The 17.4 percent of baby boomer women who had only one child account for a mere 7.8 percent of children born in the next generation. By contrast, nearly a quarter of the children of baby boomers descend from the mere 11 percent of baby boomer women who had four or more children. These circumstances are leading to the emergence of a new society whose members will disproportionately be descended from parents who rejected the social tendencies that once made childlessness and small families the norm. . . .

Among states that voted for President George W. Bush in 2004, fertility rates are 12 percent higher than in states that voted for Sen. John Kerry.

And in the former Western Europe, birthrates are far lower than in Blue State America. In general, it seems that the further left one looks on the political spectrum, the more self-centered and morose people one finds. Hence, perhaps, the lower birthrates.

As always, the future belongs to those who believe in it, and to their descendants.

Posted by Paul at 08:16 PM  |    |