Who Breeds @ GNXP, part II
Mean # of children for each category:
Left of Center to Far Left 0.52
Right of Center 0.62
Libertarian 0.85
No Religion 0.56
Religious 0.99
Atheist, Agnostic & Skeptical – 0.58
Theist to aspiring Theist – 1.05
Some University Education or less – 0.67
University Degree – 0.48
Graduate Degree – 0.85
Raw data below the fold.
# of Children Left of Center Right of Center Libertarian No Religion Religious God – Atheist, Agnostic, Skeptic God – Hopeful to Convinced Believers Some University or Lower University Degree Graduate Degree 0 104 73 72 224 80 248 49 44 135 135 1 19 19 11 43 15 40 16 2 21 37 2 21 16 18 31 32 36 20 8 19 38 3 4 7 10 17 16 21 11 5 7 21 4 1 0 4 6 3 7 2 2 2 5 5 0 2 0 1 2 2 1 0 1 2 6 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
The education trend isn’t that surprising, really. If you’re educated, the the opportunity cost of the time spent bearing and raising children increases. Likewise religious groups tend to place more emphasis on raising children, raising the psychic benefit of parenting.
It *does* surprise me that libertarians are the most fecund political group, but that may well be because a certain subset buys into the evolutionary psychology-libertarian package deal, which is more common online.
The education trend isn’t that surprising, really. If you’re educated, the the opportunity cost of the time spent bearing and raising children increases. Likewise religious groups tend to place more emphasis on raising children, raising the psychic benefit of parenting.
It *does* surprise me that libertarians are the most fecund political group, but that may well be because a certain subset buys into the evolutionary psychology-libertarian package deal, which is more common online.
People with graduate degrees have more kids than those with a university degree or some university (a non-monotonic trend). The obvious reason should be that they are older. Does controlling for age eliminate their advantage?
So it looks like it “pays” to be a religious libertarian. Very interesting.
I wonder how representative this is, and if this is telling in how the nature of the elite in the USA and Canada will change.[1]
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[1] Although that would assume that this political and religious orientation are maintained from generation from generation.
I have three children and two stepchildren (three girls, two boys) and the youngest is 27. I have only four grandchildren!!
I keep telling them… breed, breed…
“I keep telling them… breed, breed…”
I’m thinking The Penguin.
El Biblio too.
Pru Urevu Umelu Et Ha’aretz Vikivshuah…
Hooah!
Tiny reminder here though pursuant to these recent threads: Evolution doesn’t tell us what we should want, only what – in some rough anachronistic estimation – we generally do want. Composing a religion around the latest papers to emerge from Universities’ Biology Departments is kinna funny. Me-says do what makes you happy so long as the benefits seem to outweigh the detriments and have a fun time.
My parents and parents-in-law had 4 children but only 1 grandchild. Unless us old men suddenly take young wives, that’s it.
It *does* surprise me that libertarians are the most fecund political group
I blame Heinlein.
@mnuez, you said…
Composing a religion around the latest papers to emerge from Universities’ Biology Departments is kinna funny. Me-says do what makes you happy so long as the benefits seem to outweigh the detriments and have a fun time.
Well, I don’t necessarily think that “converting” to be a religious libertarian will ensure fertility. I.e., it might not be causal in nature, but just correlative.
There might be something else causing it. And religious libertarianism might just be a kind of rough “marker” of that actual cause (whatever it is) in this context.
The data doesn’t make much sense — very high numbers at “zero”. For example — look at the “University Degree” column. 135 with no kids, 50 with kids? Huh? That’s not represenative of anything. Most people have children during most of their adult lives.
Is this constrained to some particular ages? If not is there a selection bias.
If not is there a selection bias.
no fucking shit :-)
Did you make any effort to ascertain why people made the choices they did?
I went to grad school. In grad school I noticed a lot my fellow students had family members with problems with drugs or alcohol. The people who did best in the programs were the people who had the most chaos at home. This type of chaos either strengthens you or kills you. At the level where we were at, it mostly strengthened us. School and work were where we devoted our time to get away from the problems at home.
If my home life was less chaotic, I suspect I would have been less successful at school and work, but I probably would be contributing the gene pool.
My point is that their could be other factors explaining this correlation other than the inference that it is pure raw intelligence itself that is leading to reduced breeding opportunities.
If you look at the numbers, even though 72% of women in the US have 0-2 children, 55% of children live in households with 3 or more children. These are US census numbers.
So in the next generation, we may see a an uptick in births if the 55% follow the the pattern of their parents.
It makes sense if you think about it. The 36% of women who have 0-1 children only have 17% of children so their attitudes have less impact on the next generation than the 28% of women who have 55% of the children.
Since the moms in the current generation are moms by choice, it seems reasonable to assume they have a generally positive view of motherhood vs. moms from earlier times who weren’t able to choose so easily. So, again, it seems there could be potential for an increase in birthrate in the US.
As for gnxp readers, the most interesting group is the over 45 group because their number of children won’t really grow much (men could of course become fathers late in life, but those are a very small %). So I would consider them representative of all readers. Obviously the majority of the 25 and under group are least representative because they still have the most potential breeding opportunities.
Too bad I missed the survey; I have three kids currently, and am 27.
Don’t you imagine we’re starting to select for “baby-lust” and not just sexual lust? I’ve experienced “baby lust.” Got married at 21 and quit university over it!
It is not a rational state, and some women (ahem) will do a lot of crazy things to satisfy the desire, which is almost entirely separate from sex itself.
Lord help us if there is a heritable component involved.
Aurora, I came to a similar conclusion after reading Philip Longman’s Return of Patriarchy and thinking about natural selection for a bit. We’ve had a change in environment causing what used to be adaptation executions not to be so adaptive. We should expect more behaviors that overcome this change. Steven Pinker once said that if birth control pills grew on trees in the African savannah, we would consider them scary as snakes. I think that as an intermediate adaptation before the direct focus on children we will see people who display something like an allergy to such contraceptives.
Lot of different contraceptives out there, though. Being allergic to one might just mean using another.
Baby rabies almost has to be heritable, else how would it have come to be in the first place? I mean, unless you think it’s some binary thing that’s already reached 100% prevalence, which seems unlikely. And I agree we’ll likely be seeing more of it. Need genetic engineering, soon…
Aurora,
Anyone else in your family have baby lust? It seems to run in mine. Mom quit a promising career as a scientist to raise a brood of kids. (She intended on 5 but, sadly, Dad managed to chew through the straps and escape out the cellar window after the 4th.) I’m currently in the throes of “baby lust” right now and have been for a good five years. I’d probably have a few kids already if I weren’t gay… damn this reproductively useless attraction to men!
sg:
Can you post a pointer to this data? It would be interesting to see if the fraction of kids from large families increases over time.
In the last century (really about 50 years), we’ve had this enormous change–a woman’s total fertility has become mostly a matter of direct choice, rather than mostly a matter of other stuff (marriage, economic status, etc) with an element of choice in there somewhere. If there were some gene which accounted for any noticeable fraction of this choice, it seems like it would be under strong selection right now.
Does anyone know if there is data about fertility of mothers and children related to adoption studies? That would provide some very interesting data….
Yes, Mark, my mom had the baby lust in a bad, bad way, and had three kids in less than four years. Then Dad pulled the plug and got a vasectomy. I’m not sure she ever completely forgave him. LOL
But the poor crazy woman would have happily had a dozen otherwise, even if she’d have had to live in a shack and eat beans to do it.
I’ve really never met a guy with baby-lust, though. Sometimes they “want kids” but one doesn’t get the impression that it’s a visceral, all-consuming longing.
Wonder if it connects in some way to your being gay? Especially given the correlation between large families and male homosexuality.
“Baby Lust Gene Makes Dudes Gay.” How’s that for a fun headline? j/k.
Really, really hope you aren’t offended.
I wouldn’t describe it as baby lust, but I knew I wanted kids even when I was a college kid. I’m straight, and the father of three now, so this all broadly worked out (other than the sleep deprivation from colic).
The best first-person description of baby lust I’ve ever seen is from From The Archives, a now-closed blog whose archives (appropriately enough) are still up.
This was amazing.
Aurora,
My Mom was the same, in that she often said she had always dreamed of having a dozen kids, but ended up with just 6. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th of us, were born in a 2.5 year span. After that my Dad’s sisters had a few “talks” with Mom and pretty much insisted she use some form of birth control – in this case being 1960′s Ireland, it was rhythm Method + abstinance – which resulted in 2 more births over an 8 year period. Possibly both accidents?!
Aurora, Mark,
Well, I just have 2 kids currently, but have always wanted kids, as far back as at least 7 or 8 yo, when I remember picking out names for my future kids. My problem has always been, I’m attracted to smart, ambitious, career women, who too often want to delay having kids or not have them at all – this led to divorce in my first marriage, as I simply couldn’t consider living my life without any kids.
I could totally see male gayness and female baby lust coming from the same genes; they both represent a ‘feminine’ sexual pattern, after all.
That might even be why gay genes get propagated; they cause women to have lots of kids, so who cares if a few guys don’t have any? It’s only the sum of the genes that matters…