Is identity politics good for well-being?

The most popular articles being shared in our network this week.

Differential fertility makes society more conservative on family values. Tom Vogl and Jeremy Freese examine the relationship between fertility and traditional family values in the US. Confirming that the relationship is positive, they note that in the 2004–2018 period opposition to abortion and same sex marriage was 3–4 percentage points lower than it would have been in the absence of an association.

Nutrition and Mental Performance. In a classic article from 1972, Zena Stein and colleagues compare rates of mental retardation and average IQ at age 19 among Dutch people born in two groups of cities: those that were affected by the famine in 1944–45 and those that were not. They find small and inconsistent differences between the two groups, suggesting that prenatal exposure to famine does not impact mental performance.

Cohorts born in famine-affected cities had lower birth weights but similar rates of mental retardation at age 19 as those born in control cities.

Love or politics? Political views regarding the war in Ukraine in an online dating experiment. Anna Beloborodova examines whether Russians’ stance on the war in Ukraine affects their success in the online dating market. She finds sizeable penalties for those who express both pro- and anti-war positions on their profiles, suggesting there is a high degree of polarisation in Russian society.