IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/yor/yorken/08-18.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Daughters and Left Wing Voting

Author

Abstract

What determines human beings' political preferences? Using nationally representative longitudinal data, we show that having daughters makes people more likely to vote for left-wing political parties. Having sons leads people to favor right-wing parties. The paper checks that our result is not an artifact of family stopping-rules, discusses the predictions from a simple economic model, and tests for possible reverse causality.

Suggested Citation

  • A Oswald & N Powdthavee, 2008. "Daughters and Left Wing Voting," Discussion Papers 08/18, Department of Economics, University of York.
    • Handle: RePEc:yor:yorken:08/18
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.york.ac.uk/media/economics/documents/discussionpapers/2008/0818.pdf
    File Function: Main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yoram Ben-Porath & Finis Welch, 1976. "Do Sex Preferences Really Matter?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 90(2), pages 285-307.
    2. Shelly Lundberg & Elaina Rose, 2002. "The Effects Of Sons And Daughters On Men'S Labor Supply And Wages," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 251-268, May.
    3. Angrist, Joshua D & Evans, William N, 1998. "Children and Their Parents' Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 450-477, June.
    4. Shelly Lundberg, 2005. "Sons, Daughters, and Parental Behaviour," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 21(3), pages 340-356, Autumn.
    5. Alesina, Alberto & La Ferrara, Eliana, 2005. "Preferences for redistribution in the land of opportunities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 897-931, June.
    6. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2003. "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(3), pages 489-520.
    7. Raghabendra Chattopadhyay & Esther Duflo, 2004. "Women as Policy Makers: Evidence from a Randomized Policy Experiment in India," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(5), pages 1409-1443, September.
    8. Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M. & De Boef, Suzanna & Lin, Tse-Min, 2004. "The Dynamics of the Partisan Gender Gap," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 98(3), pages 515-528, August.
    9. Hans‐Peter Kohler & Jere R. Behrman & Axel Skytthe, 2005. "Partner + Children = Happiness? The Effects of Partnerships and Fertility on Well‐Being," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 31(3), pages 407-445, September.
    10. Lena Edlund, 1999. "Son Preference, Sex Rations, and Marriage Patterns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(6), pages 1275-1304, December.
    11. Johnston, R. J. & Pattie, Charles, 2000. "Inconsistent Individual Attitudes within Consistent Attitudinal Structures: Comments on an Important Issue Raised by John Bartle's Paper on Causal Modelling of Voting in Britain," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(2), pages 361-374, April.
    12. Rafael Di Tella & Robert MacCulloch, 2005. "Partisan Social Happiness," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(2), pages 367-393.
    13. Samuel Bowles, 1998. "Endogenous Preferences: The Cultural Consequences of Markets and Other Economic Institutions," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 75-111, March.
    14. Kristin F. Butcher & Anne Case, 1994. "The Effect of Sibling Sex Composition on Women's Education and Earnings," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 531-563.
    15. Lena Edlund & Rohini Pande, 2002. "Why Have Women Become Left-Wing? The Political Gender Gap and the Decline in Marriage," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 917-961.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Younghwan Song & Jia Gao, 2023. "Do fathers have son preference in the United States? Evidence from paternal subjective well-being," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 1083-1117, September.
    2. Thushyanthan Baskaran & Sonia Bhalotra & Brian Min & Yogesh Uppal, 2018. "Women legislators and economic performance," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-47, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Michael Baker & Kevin Milligan, 2016. "Boy-Girl Differences in Parental Time Investments: Evidence from Three Countries," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(4), pages 399-441.
    4. Adriana D. Kugler & Santosh Kumar, 2017. "Preference for Boys, Family Size, and Educational Attainment in India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(3), pages 835-859, June.
    5. de Haan, Monique, 2010. "Birth order, family size and educational attainment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 576-588, August.
    6. David W Lawson & Arijeta Makoli & Anna Goodman, 2013. "Sibling Configuration Predicts Individual and Descendant Socioeconomic Success in a Modern Post-Industrial Society," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(9), pages 1-9, September.
    7. Zurab Abramishvili & William Appleman & Sergii Maksymovych, 2019. "Parental Gender Preference in the Balkans and Scandinavia: Gender Bias or Differential Costs?," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp643, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    8. Sonia Bhalotra & Irma Clots-Figueras, 2014. "Health and the Political Agency of Women," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 164-197, May.
    9. Stefano Gagliarducci & M. Daniele Paserman, 2012. "Gender Interactions within Hierarchies: Evidence from the Political Arena," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(3), pages 1021-1052.
    10. Hazan, Moshe & Zoabi, Hosny, 2009. "Sons or Daughters? Endogenous Sex Preferences and the Reversal of the Gender Educational Gap," Foerder Institute for Economic Research Working Papers 275728, Tel-Aviv University > Foerder Institute for Economic Research.
    11. Moshe HAZAN & Hosny ZOABI, 2015. "Sons or Daughters? Sex Preferences and the Reversal of the Gender Educational Gap," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(2), pages 179-201, June.
    12. Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Bhalotra, Sonia R. & Min, Brian & Uppal, Yogesh, 2018. "Women Legislators and Economic Performance," IZA Discussion Papers 11596, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Ferreira, Fernando & Gyourko, Joseph, 2014. "Does gender matter for political leadership? The case of U.S. mayors," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 24-39.
    14. Vikesh Amin, 2009. "Sibling Sex Composition and Educational Outcomes: A Review of Theory and Evidence for the UK," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 23(1), pages 67-96, March.
    15. Hessami, Zohal & da Fonseca, Mariana Lopes, 2020. "Female political representation and substantive effects on policies: A literature review," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    16. Pham-Kanter, Genevieve, 2010. "The Gender Weight Gap: Sons, Daughters, and Maternal Weight," MPRA Paper 28997, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Irma Clots-Figueras, 2012. "Are Female Leaders Good for Education? Evidence from India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 212-244, January.
    18. Ozdamar, Oznur, 2017. "Gendered economic policy making: The case of public expenditures on family allowances," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 11, pages 1-28.
    19. Xiaoyan Lei & Yan Shen & James P. Smith & Guangsu Zhou, 2017. "Sibling gender composition’s effect on education: evidence from China," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 569-590, April.
    20. Kotsadam, Andreas & Nerman, Måns, 2012. "The Effects of Gender Quotas in Latin American National Elections," Working Papers in Economics 528, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Voting; gender; daughters; political preferences; attitudes.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:yor:yorken:08/18. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Paul Hodgson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deyoruk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.