MAGA Women Defy the Birth Dearth

> Q12: Conservatives have more children than liberals. Doesn’t that mean conservative values produce higher fertility?

> At the individual level, yes. At the system level, the opposite is true.

> Individual conservatives have more children than individual liberals. But countries with conservative policy regimes have lower fertility than liberal ones. The Nordics and France outperform Southern Europe. Catholic Italy and Spain have Europe’s lowest fertility despite cultural emphasis on family. So we have a situation where social conservatives thrive and live their best lives under generous welfare states.

> POSIWID resolves the paradox. What matters isn’t what a system values. It’s what it produces.

> Conservative values say family is important. Liberal systems remove barriers to family formation. Traditional societies say “have children” while their systems say “good luck.” People respond to the system.

> France and northern Western European countries have high fertility because their systems.

> That said, Western European governments are now dismantling these decades-old systems since the Great Recession, with lots of academic research confirming the results. Meanwhile in Eastern Europe, right-wing parties sometimes advocate for family spending, as Stone would gladly attest. In Poland, Slavoj Žižek notes it was the right-wing PiS who implemented universal healthcare, not the left.

> The question isn’t whether you value family. It’s whether your system removes barriers and risk that prevents family formation.