Papa Does Preach: Daughters and Polarisation of Attitudes toward Abortion

No 11177, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This article examines the hypothesis that having daughters polarises male politicians' attitudes toward abortion rights. Using French and U.S voting records, I estimate that having daughters decreases support for abortion law by 25% for right-wing congressmen in France, and increases support for Democrats by 12%. I find similar behavioural patterns for voters using electoral surveys. Robustness checks confirm that this result is not an artefact of family stopping rules. I rationalise these findings in a model predicting that fathers with paternalistic preferences adopt a more polarised political position on abortion when they have a daughter rather than a son.

Keywords: political behaviour; gender; polarisation; voting; attitudes; abortion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D83 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 63 pages
Date: 2017-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-dem and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2020, 179, 188-201

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