Oklahoma is gaining more families, measured as a percentage increase, than all but 11 states in the country, according to a recent analysis.

According to the report by the Institute for Family Studies, the trend among most (although not all) states that are gaining families is that those states are generally conservative political environments.

“Today, the family-friendly policies and cultural distinctives that matter most for parents are more likely to be found in red (and purple) states, not in blue states,” the report stated.

Lyman Stone, senior fellow and director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies, and Brad Wilcox, Future of Freedom Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies and director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, authored the report.

They based their conclusions on data from the American Community Survey, a program conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, for 2021 and 2022.

Oklahoma ranked 12th among states based on percentage growth of the portion of the population who are parents with children. Oklahoma’s net immigration from 2021 to 2022 increased by 8,000 families, a one percent increase.

The 11 states ranking above Oklahoma were Idaho (2.3 percent increase), New Hampshire (2.1 percent), Montana (1.8 percent), South Carolina (1.5 percent), South Dakota (1.2 percent), Arizona (1.1 percent), Connecticut (1.1 percent), Nevada (1.1 percent), Vermont (1.1 percent), Georgia (1 percent), and Maine (1 percent).

“Obviously, a lot of this movement was related to COVID, with families fleeing cities looking for suburban and rural places with more space, places where remote work for parents was easier,” Stone and Wilcox wrote. “But predominantly red and purple states in the Sunbelt and Rocky Mountain West were also more likely to have school districts that re-opened more quickly amidst the pandemic than many blue states, as well as new school choice laws that make it easier for parents to send their kids to better schools. Economically, these states have also attracted parents looking for places with lower taxes and strong job growth. Finally, red states have generally resisted letting their schools and sports be guided by avant-garde gender theories. All these educational, economic, and cultural factors help explain the red state appeal to families with children looking to relocate.”

In raw numbers, only four of the top 11 states experienced a net increase of more than the 8,000 families that moved to Oklahoma during that time.

“Parents are not generally moving towards states with the preferred family policies of progressives,” Stone and Wilcox wrote. “They are moving out of these states, including Democratic states, like New York, California, Massachusetts, and Oregon, all well known for their liberal family policies. Blue states that voted for Democratic presidential candidates in both 2016 and 2020 lost 213,000 families with children in 2021 and 2022 (a 0.7% net decline), while red states that voted for President Trump in both elections gained 181,000 families (a 0.6% net gain).”

The bottom 15 states in the report, which all experienced a net decline in family numbers, were New York, Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois, Hawaii, Louisiana, Colorado, Virginia, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maryland, and Utah.