Marshaling evidence from the GSS, Jayman has thoughtfully and diligently looked at white fertility rates by political orientation over time. The tendency for conservatives to be more fecund than liberals extends at least as far back as the cohort of people born in the 1920s, and it has become more pronounced since then. Jayman argues this presages a future in which whites become, on average, increasingly conservative in their political outlooks. Given the partial heritability of political orientation, this is a plausible assertion (at least in a relative sense--the political ratchet seems almost inexorably to always turn to the left, with the consequence that oftentimes what was leftist a generation ago is considered mainstream today and what was conservative a generation ago is viewed as being totally beyond the pale today).
I've wondered, though, if the same argument applies to non-whites*. The following graph shows the mean number of children among liberal, moderate, and conservative non-whites by range of year of birth. For consistency, I used the same birth cohorts and years of survey participation as Jayman did:
Like whites, conservative non-whites have been outbreeding liberal non-whites for nearly a century now, yet it hardly seems obvious that non-whites have moved to the right (absolutely or relatively) over the last several decades, nor does it seem a prudent to bet that they will in the future. And the social-versus-economic angle doesn't hopelessly confound here--non-whites are moving to the left on social issues, not just on economic ones.
This epigone isn't an augur so I won't prognosticate about the trajectory of non-white political orientation in the future. I merely hope (though I'm not optimistic) that the political beliefs of tomorrow are recognizable by their ideological flavors rather than by the race and ethnicity of the person espousing them.
GSS variables used: COHORT(1883-1909)(1910-1919)(1920-1929)(1930-1939)(1940-1949)(1950-1959)(1960-1969)(1970-1979), YEAR(1972-2010)(1985-2010)(1993-2010)(2002-2010)(2006-2010), POLVIEWS(1-3)(4)(5-7), CHILDS, RACE(2-3)
* Referring here to those who selected either "black" or "other" from the three choices "white", "black", and "other".
I've wondered, though, if the same argument applies to non-whites*. The following graph shows the mean number of children among liberal, moderate, and conservative non-whites by range of year of birth. For consistency, I used the same birth cohorts and years of survey participation as Jayman did:
Like whites, conservative non-whites have been outbreeding liberal non-whites for nearly a century now, yet it hardly seems obvious that non-whites have moved to the right (absolutely or relatively) over the last several decades, nor does it seem a prudent to bet that they will in the future. And the social-versus-economic angle doesn't hopelessly confound here--non-whites are moving to the left on social issues, not just on economic ones.
This epigone isn't an augur so I won't prognosticate about the trajectory of non-white political orientation in the future. I merely hope (though I'm not optimistic) that the political beliefs of tomorrow are recognizable by their ideological flavors rather than by the race and ethnicity of the person espousing them.
GSS variables used: COHORT(1883-1909)(1910-1919)(1920-1929)(1930-1939)(1940-1949)(1950-1959)(1960-1969)(1970-1979), YEAR(1972-2010)(1985-2010)(1993-2010)(2002-2010)(2006-2010), POLVIEWS(1-3)(4)(5-7), CHILDS, RACE(2-3)
* Referring here to those who selected either "black" or "other" from the three choices "white", "black", and "other".
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