A study in the scientific journal Human Reproduction compared the birth rates of states during the Covid pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.
The red (Republican-leaning) states trended toward higher live birth rates, while blue (Democrat-leaning) states saw their live birthrates decline, the study reported in April.
The researchers explored the impact of public perception of the Covid-19 pandemic on fertility rates, researchers found a significant correlation between the degree to which states or regions took the virus seriously, feared the virus, had a lot of anxiety about the future, and subsequent fluctuations in their fertility rates.
The study suggests that political leanings played a role in shaping the perceived threat of the virus, with Democratic-leaning states and Washington, D.C. exhibiting a higher level of concern compared to their Republican-leaning counterparts.
For example, Utah, South Dakota, and Idaho birth rates went up, while New York, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. went down.
San Francisco mirrored the liberal drop in childbearing during the recent pandemic. The Bay Area had an 18% decline in births in early 2021, right when early pandemic babies might have been born, compared to a 15% decline in California in general for the pandemic year of 2021.
Alaska and Hawaii are not found in the study, but a separate look at Alaska’s birth rates show a continuous drop for many years, one that continued through the Covid pandemic years of 2020-2022.
Since 2015, Alaska’s live births have dropped by over 17%. Unlike red states of South Dakota, Utah and Idaho, the downward trend was unchanged during the waves of pandemic lockdowns and mandates. Alaska is currently in the longest stretch of declining birth rates since the state began keeping records in 1945.
Year | Live Births in Alaska
—————————–
2015 | 11,325
2016 | 11,247
2017 | 10,496
2018 | 10,120
2019 | 9,862
2020 | 9,469
2021 | 9,410
2022 | 9,364
In general, liberals are not having nearly enough children to keep up with conservatives. This makes it no surprise that San Francisco has a birthrate of 3.6 per 1,000 compared with Anchorage at nearly 12.66 live births per 1,000, and Fairbanks at 13.35, according to Statista.
“The political right is having a lot more kids than the political left,” observed Syracuse University social scientist Arthur Brooks, in 2006. “The gap is actually 41 percent.”
The U.S. birth rate shows that 100 conservative adults will have 208 children, while 100 liberal adults will have 147.
If birth rates during Covid pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 are any indication, then Alaska is an anomaly among the red states.
Alaska, where the birth rate keeps dropping, voted for President Donald Trump in 2020 by a margin of 53%. Adding Trump votes together the other conservative candidates on the General Election ballot in 2020 (Libertarian Jo Jorgensen, and Constitution Party Don Blankenship), the conservatives won 55.5% of the presidential votes in Alaska. But the babies are just not showing up in the 49th state, like they are in other conservative states.
