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February 08, 2006
Choice for Daughters
Thanks to TomPaine for posting about a working paper by Ebonya Washington from the National Bureau of Economic Research. Apparently, if congresspeople have daughters, they are more likely to vote in favor of reproductive choice. I've posted the abstract here, but, unfortunately, the working paper itself costs money.
ABSTRACT
Economists have long concerned themselves with environmental influences, such as neighborhood, peers and family on individuals' beliefs and behaviors. However, the impact of children on parents' behavior has been little studied. Parenting daughters, psychologists have shown, increases feminist sympathies. I test the hypothesis that children, much like neighbors or peers, can influence adult behavior. I demonstrate that the propensity to vote liberally on reproductive rights is significantly increasing in a congress person's proportion of daughters. The result demonstrates not only the relevance of child to parent behavioral influence, but also the importance of personal ideology in a legislator's voting decisions as it is not explained away by voter preferences.
Female Socialization: How Daughters Affect Their Legislator Fathers' Voting on Women's Issues