A study shows that having children is good for you

To have or not to have children : the debate often rages in these parts. And today the consequences of climate change do not fail to weigh in the balance when it comes to making the decision to start a family or not.

What if one more reason was added to the list? A series of four studies by University of Pennsylvania researchers showed that having children clearly does tilt the political slider to the conservative side of the force. Basically, becoming a parent would lead to an attachment to more traditional values ​​concerning, for example, family, education, sexuality or religionmaking it more resistant to social progress.

Mass: having children makes people righteous. Admit you didn’t see it coming.

What if parenting made us more receptive to conservative ideas?

This is The Guardian which highlights this research work: “There’s this idea that the older you get, the more conservative you become because of the experience of clashing with the harshness of reality. But this is not the case. If we look at people who are not parents, we don’t see an age difference. remarked Nicholas Kerry, one of its authors.

How to explain this difference between childless people and parents? “Since conservative social values ​​seemingly prioritize security, stability and family values, we speculate that investing more in parental care could make conservative politics more attractive. “ suggests the team of researchers who worked on the study.

So we don’t become an old fart or an old fart just with the weight of the years accumulating on our frail shoulders. To reach this conclusion, several studies have been conducted in different countries to understand the attachment to parenting, care and children and see the correlation link with conservative ideasfrom a sexual and reproductive, social or economic point of view.

Obviously these studies have their limits, they are also the reflection of a set of social values ​​that may differ from one country to another. The Guardian points out that in countries like India or Pakistan, for example, parenting is not linked to an increase in conservative behavior. Studies also show that the factor of social desirability, i.e. the fact that the respondent wants to appear in a positive light, can also be taken into account in the results.

Towards a more liberal world?

While the question of having children or not is becoming more and more present in Western societies, the team that produced this study suggests that the consequences could also be very political and profoundly change customs and behaviors:

“As the birth rate is falling in most of the world – but it is increasing dramatically in some regions – the findings found could have profound implications for the political landscape of the future.

In particular, our findings suggest that increasing childlessness could potentially contribute to a process of liberalization of social issues. Consequently, integrating these findings with existing patterns of political behavior could contribute to more accurate models of ideological evolution at the population level. “

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