Attitudes about Affirmative Action for Women: The Role of Children in Shaping Parents’ Interests

Abstract

This paper uses pooled cross-sectional data from the 2000, 2004, and 2006, a nationally representative sample of the U.S. adult population, to assess how employed parents' attitudes about affirmative action for women are influenced by their children's gender. The analytic sample includes 1,695 employed respondents. Findings based on logistic regression indicate that having daughters (and no sons) magnifies employed mothers' support for affirmative action for women and minimizes employed fathers' support. Conversely, having sons (and no daughters) does not suppress mothers' support for affirmative action for women, nor does it differentiate men's attitudes about affirmative action. We speculate about how these patterns in parents' attitudes relate to self interest and group interest (i.e., their children's future work experiences).

Gendered Fitness Interests: A Method Partitioning the Effects of Family Composition on Socio-Political Attitudes and Behaviors

“…Parents, particularly fathers, who have only daughters express stronger support for public policies that address gender equity, whereas those policies gained the least support from men who have only sons (Warner and Steel 1999). The sex of one's children can also affect adherence to conservative gender roles (Downey et al 1994), attitudes concerning affirmative action (Prokos et al 2010), and social dominance orientations (Pratto et al 1994. "Daughter effects" are found in the political sphere as well.…”

“…Women, for example, are more likely than men to favor gender equitable labor practices and remuneration, express punitive views on intimate partner violence, and favor public goods spending (Twenge 1997, Manza and Brooks 1998, Eagly et al 2004, Eagly and Diekman 2006, Calvo-Salguero et al 2008, Donnelly et al 2016, Bell et al 2018. Women and men also diverge, on average, on socio-political issues less directly related to reproduction and bodily autonomy, including the punishment of crime, the treatment of outgroups, economic redistribution, public goods spending, and religiosity (Eysenck 1975, Feather 1977, Sidanius and Ekehammar 1980, Ekehammar and Sidanius 1982, Prokos et al 2010, Lizotte 2016, 2017. These issues assort with those more closely tied to reproduction and gender roles to define the progressive-conservative political axis (Pratto et al 1994).…”

“…Yet, there are many women who favor 'conservative' positions, and many men who favour 'progressive' positions. Moreover, while sex differences on such issues have been extensively documented in several societies (Eysenck 1975, Feather 1977, Sidanius and Ekehammar 1980, Ekehammar and Sidanius 1982, Prokos et al 2010, Lizotte 2016, SOCIO-POLITICAL ATTITUDES AND GENDERED FITNESS INTERESTS 4 2017), they are often quite small (see, for example, Hyde 2005, Eagly and Diekman 2006, Lizotte 2015). This fact suggests that sex shapes only a small portion of observed variation relative to other sources of individual variation including but not limited to wealth, status, race, class, education, religiosity, intelligence, and health.…”

Children’s Gender and Parents’ Color Preferences

“…Congressional representatives with daughters are more likely to vote liberally on reproductive rights issues (Washington, 2008); parents with daughters are more supportive of gender equity policies (Warner & Stell, 1999), and more likely to vote for leftwing political parties (Oswald & Powdthavee, 2010). On the other hand, although mothers of daughters are more supportive of affirmative action for women, the opposite effect was found for fathers of daughters, while sons have no effect (Prokos, Baird, & Keene 2010). Mothers may be affected hormonally by the sex of their children during gestation (Grant, 2008), but we do not have evidence that this drives long-lasting behavioral patterns.…”

Helping to Break the Glass Ceiling? Fathers, First Daughters, and Presidential Vote Choice in 2016

“…In the growing number of studies that explore the impact of fathering daughters on men's political attitudes and behaviors, scholars have employed varied items to best measure fatherhood of a daughter, including whether the respondent has a daughter (Prokos et al 2010), whether a man has a daughter first (Shafer and Malhotra 2011;Sharrow et al 2018), and the proportion of all children that are daughters (Conley and Rauscher 2013;Washington 2008). In addition to the theoretical reasons 13 All of our cross-sectional results are similar with Stein voters included in the 0 category.…”