Unlike Europe's, U.S. Population Continues to Grow -- And in the Right Places

Steven Mosher
By Joseph A. D'Agostino
PRI Weekly Briefing
30 December 2004
Vol. 6 / No. 42
Reproduced with Permission

The U.S. Census Bureau's latest population figures released this month show that the U.S. population is growing at a 1% annual rate. The nation added 2.9 million people between July 1, 2003 and July 1, 2004, with about 1.2 million of that coming from immigration, according to the bureau. (However, the bureau may underestimate illegal immigrants.) This growth was not spread evenly across the country, but was concentrated in the more pro-life, family-oriented "red states." America's relatively robust growth stands in sharp contrast to the demographic disaster facing Europe and Japan, both of which are in the opening stages of a major population dieback.

The 47 nations of Europe (including Russia) are already losing people as I write. The United Nations Population Division projects that between 2005 and 2050, the continent will lose 93 million people, imploding from 725 million to 632 million. Even Western Europe, despite a continuing influx of childbearing immigrants, will see a significant decline in numbers. Europe's fertility rate is an anemic 1.3 children per woman, far below the 2.1 needed to maintain the population at current levels. Japan, historically antagonistic to immigrants, will lose 18 million people, shrinking from 128 million to 110 million people. America's fertility rate, on the other hand, is just above 2.1, and American women are having more, not fewer, children today than they did 15 years ago.

What does the fecundity of (at least relatively) cradle-loving Americans, and the infecundity of our childless European cousins, bode for the future? Internationally, it means that "old Europe" will continue to decline in power and influence relative to a younger and more dynamic United States. Domestically, it means that pro-life and pro-family forces within America will continue to gain strength. Politically, this trend began in earnest in 1994, when Republicans running on a conservative platform took control of both houses of Congress. This slow political takeover has spread to governorships, state legislatures, and even to the White House, where President Bush overcame a mediocre economy and a shaky war effort to win re-election with the support of burgeoning pro-family forces. Some day soon, this revenge of the cradle on the part of conservative-loving Americans may reach the judiciary.

Massachusetts, the liberal bastion par excellence, as the French say, was the only state to actually lose people between July 1, 2003 and July 1, 2004. The equally lefty District of Columbia also lost people. Topping the population growth charts were, in descending order: Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Georgia, Texas, Utah, Delaware, North Carolina, and New Mexico. Each and every one of these states went for Bush this year with the exception of Delaware, and all except Delaware and New Mexico are solidly red and reliably pro-life. Even Sen. Harry Reid (D.-Nev.), the new leader of the rabidly pro-abortion Senate Democrats, usually votes pro-life. These ten states accounted for 49% of the country's population growth. The one-time bellwether state of California has tilted from red to blue in recent years. Massive immigration has been offset enough by a middle-class flight to more family-friendly jurisdictions to kick the Golden State's growth rate out of the top ten.

The solid South, now reliably red and strongly pro-life, had the largest increase in population among America's regions (1.5 million); the mostly red and pro-life West had the fastest growth rate (1.5%), although the South was close behind with 1.4%. The mostly blue and anti-life regions of the Northeast (0.3%) and Midwest (0.5%) didn't fare as well. In these stark regional disparities one can discern America's political future.

Ethnic voting patterns are important here, too. As Steve Sailer pointed out in the Dec. 20, 2004 American Conservative, pro-life Bush carried the 19 states with the highest white fertility rates and 25 of the top 26. Abortion-on-demand Kerry won the 16 states with the lowest white fertility rates. The party that gets the lion's share of the votes of 70% of the population is well on its way to victory.

Unlike the factors made fashionable by the media-the gender gap or out-sourcing, for example-the "baby gap" is a far better predictor of how a state will vote. "Indeed, voters are picking their parties based on differing approaches to the most fundamentally important human activity: having babies," wrote Sailer. "The white people in Republican-voting regions consistently have more children than the white people in Democratic-voting regions. The more kids whites have, the more pro-Bush they get." Higher marriage rates and more time spent married correlates even more strongly with Republicanism, Sailer later found. "When years married is teamed with fertility in a two-factor multiple regression model, the correlation becomes stratospheric," he wrote on Vdare.com.

The self-evident truth: The future belongs to those peoples and countries that are living out the pro-life, pro-family message. All the rest are history.

So consider making "be fruitful and multiply" your New Year's resolution for 2005.

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