Female Socialization: How Daughters Affect Their Legislator Fathers

[bicentennial_baby]

Ebonya Washington, an economist at Yale, has a great paper that was just published in the American Economic Review called “Female Socialization: How Daughters Affect Their Legislator Fathers’ Voting on Women’s Issues.”

She looks at members in the House of Representatives and looks to see whether their voting patterns change. She provides interesting evidence that, “conditional on total number of children, each daughter increases a congress person’s propensity to vote liberally on reproductive rights issues.”

For example, looking at representatives with two children, she finds that N.O.W. (National Organization for Women) scores increase as the number of daughters increases:



Her regressions suggest that the effect runs primarily through the impact of daughters on fathers. Representatives who are mothers apparently don’t need any more “female socialization.”

This article got me to thinking about whether having kids impacts the electability of candidates.

More here: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/kids-and-congress/

I downloaded the paper, haven't had a chance to read it yet though. Looks interesting. :hi:

[Solly Mack]

1. I'm gonna K&R this

now off to read more and ponder

[bicentennial_baby]

2. Thank you love...

You are in my thoughts :hug:

:loveya:

[Solly Mack]

18. Thank you!! :)

:hug:

Backatcha

[Ilsa]

3. K&R. Important stuff. nt

[DS1]

4. innerestin

[PeaceNikki]

5. Interesting!

Thanks!

:hi:

[supernova]

6. So more daughters means

a man can come to understand how hard it is for women?

[bicentennial_baby]

8. I'm not sure that that's the exact conclusion...

:hi:

[Manifestor_of_Light]

9. It's amazing how ignorant some men are of womens' bodily functions,

such as pregnancy, menstruation, and the effects of sexism such as unequal pay for equal work, lack of maternity/pregnancy leave, etc.

For example, Ron Paul says he has never seen a woman with a life-threatening pregnancy. This is statistically impossible. He is lying.

Ron Paul has been an OB-GYN in Lake Jackson, Texas (company town for Dow Chemical in Freeport) for about 35 years. In the sheer volume of patients he's had, he MUST have had patients with ectopic pregnancies, which are always life threatening, or extremely deformed fetuses who needed a late term abortion. Don't use the term "partial-birth abortion". The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists do not accept that as a medical term.

[cbayer]

7. Cool.

Not surprising but always nice to see actual data

[Lex]

10. Many good fathers thru the ages insisted their daughters be well-educated

(by private tutors if necessary) even well before it was socially acceptable to do so.

[Mind_your_head]

11. Well, lemme tell ya first hand.....a lot of 'good fathers' give you the

good education and the Mercedes and all of the trappings.....so that you will be perceived as a "good catch" by one of the 'player's' sons *wink*wink* - it's really very sick. /eom

[Lex]

12. Being a "good catch" hundreds of years ago had little to do

with being well-educated, if you were a woman.

Having powerful and moneyed men in the family was more important to be a "good catch."


Still, many fathers wanted their daughters to be well-educated for their own sakes.

[Mind_your_head]

13. If you choose to believe that, okay.....I don't. Not in this patriarchal society, no.

Still, many fathers wanted their daughters to be well-educated for their own sakes.

[Lex]

14. Read and try to understand the OP

and you (maybe) will get the point.

[Mind_your_head]

16. Yeah, I just did. WTF?

But here’s a tougher question: Who has more kids — male or female members of the House?

There are lots of stories you could tell here. Professional women tend to have fewer kids than professional men (probably because a disproportionate burden of child rearing still falls upon them). But a counter hypothesis is that voters demand that women politicians have more kids (than they demand of male politicians).

Voters might demand that women politicians have more kids to prove that they are “real women” or that they will care about family issues. (To suggest that this is a possible voter preference is not to suggest that it is normatively attractive!) If the latter hypothesis is true, Chelsea Clinton’s status as a single child may....

[Mind_your_head]

15. Whose that guy marrying Jenna again?

He's gonna be a good little bushitler. Did gwb have any 'care' about giving his daughter away? And what's with "giving your daughter away, anway"?

Good riddance, *phew* she's 'gone'...what a burden.....she's someone else's problem now.....

[femrap]

17. I always hoped that my boss

had daughters....they were nicer to me.

[Quantess]

19. self delete