In most European countries, people who place themselves on the political right have more children and grandchildren than people on the left. If children tend to share their parents’ views, that difference alone could slowly push European societies in a more conservative direction.
The analysis is by Martin Fieder and Susanne Huber of the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna. It was published open access in Biodemography and Social Biology on November 4, 2024.
Two big surveys, three generations
The first data set was the 2013 wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, covering 66,188 mostly older adults in 14 European countries and Israel. Respondents placed themselves on a scale from 0 (far left) to 10 (far right), and reported their living siblings, children and grandchildren. That allowed the authors to look across three generations.
The second was the European Gender and Generation Survey, with 121,248 people in 12 countries surveyed between 2004 and 2013. Here the measure was family values: whether same-sex couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples, and whether a woman must have children to be fulfilled.
More children, more grandchildren on the right
After accounting for age, sex, education and country, right-wing respondents had significantly more children and grandchildren than left-wing ones. People in the political middle had no advantage. Country by country, a right-wing lean was linked to significantly more grandchildren in 10 of 15 countries.
The gaps could be large. In the Netherlands, the average for the grandchild generation was 3.5 in right-wing respondents’ families, against 1.9 in left-wing ones. Sweden and the Czech Republic were exceptions, and Israel ran the other way, with a clear fertility advantage for the left.
Family values showed the same pattern. People who rejected equal rights for same-sex couples had more children in every country studied except Estonia, and those who agreed a woman needs children to be fulfilled had more children in all countries except Georgia.
What that could mean for the next generations
The authors then estimated how the right-wing share would change if each family’s attitude carried over to its offspring. In Austria it rose from 47% in the respondents’ generation to 48% among their children and 53% among their grandchildren. In the Netherlands it went from 57% to 61% to 69%. The share rose from the first to the second generation in every country except Israel, Luxembourg and Slovenia.
For family values, the estimated rightward shift was largest in Germany and France. In Germany, the share holding the conservative view on same-sex couples rose by more than 8 percentage points from one generation to the next, and in France by more than 11.
The projection rests on the idea that political attitudes pass from parents to children, socially and partly genetically, which the authors support with earlier twin and family studies. But they stress that they do not know the actual views of the siblings, children and grandchildren. They also note that immigration of more conservative people could drive a rightward drift, and their data cannot separate the causes.
Study Details:
- Title: Demography leads to more conservative European societies
- Authors: Martin Fieder, Susanne Huber
- Journal: Biodemography and Social Biology, Vol. 69, No. 4, pages 183-202
- Publication Date: November 4, 2024
- DOI: 10.1080/19485565.2024.2419075