Sibling Ideological Influence: A Natural Experiment

Abstract

Siblings are a potentially important source of political socialization. Influence is common, especially among younger siblings and those close in age, who tend to interact most frequently. This suggests that the positions of an individual's next-older sibling will hold particular sway. In policy questions with a gender gap, then, those whose immediately older sibling is a sister will be more likely to absorb the typically female preference; those born after a brother, the male preference. Evidence from the United States shows that this pattern holds for general left-right orientation as well as for the preferred balance between public and private sectors. Just as American women are more likely to lean left and to see government intervention positively, so are Americans whose next-older sibling is female.Beliefs and preferences serve as the foundation for models of political economy; 1 they are similarly central to the study of everything from elections and legislative voting to international relations. 2 Understanding of the sources and formation of beliefs is consequently critical for political science. Many sources shape political preferences: direct experience (of, for example, recession), elite framings and the mass media all give information conducing to particular viewpoints. Of particular importance, though, are social interactions: not for nothing is the process of preference formation usually called 'socialization'. Parents, teachers, peers, fellow members of clubs and organizations -each provide cues about proper behaviour and the workings of society. Accordingly, all have received attention from scholars looking to trace the origins and evolution of individuals' political beliefs.Curiously, however, siblings have received relatively little attention as a source of socialization, despite their conspicuous place in the lives and perceptions of young people. In part, this is because it is hard to distinguish the independent effect of individuals' sisters and brothers, since the same parents and, often, community influences that affect the individuals themselves also shape the siblings. Moreover, in most (but not all) households, all members share racial and socio-economic characteristics, further reducing the scope for identifying and isolating siblings' specific influence.Yet siblings do vary. Most importantly, they differ in sex -and do so in quasi-random ways that expedite empirical analysis. Psychologists and sociologists have extensively considered this variation in siblings' sex, finding widespread effects on behavioural and educational outcomes. One of the more sizeable and consistent of these effects reflects the

Intergenerational Correlations of Extreme Right‐Wing Party Preferences and Attitudes toward Immigration

“…Studies show a disproportionately low preference of women toward the radical right (Givens, ), while evidence on women's attitudes toward migration remains more mixed (Hainmueller and Hiscox, ). In cases where right‐wing policies are associated with conservative stances toward redistributive policies and gender issues, lower labor market participation and (sudden) falls in income might drive females to the opposite of the political spectrum (Edlund and Pande, ; Urbatsch, ). The observed differences might also be caused by gender gaps in other preferences, such as women's general aversion toward extremism and violence or a reluctance to reveal radical preferences; see Croson and Gneezy () for an overview.…”

Does the Gender of Offspring Affect Parental Political Orientation?

“…Since the size of effects in social science studies is expected to be modest in general, statistical power (or sample size) should be large enough to detect the small or modest effects. For example, Urbatsch (2011) found that having older sisters leads to a more liberal ideology based on 1994 GSS sample (N=1,783), whereas Healy and Malhotra (2013) found that having sisters causes men to be more likely to identify as Republicans using the Political Socialization Panel in 1965, 1973, 1997 and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 79 in 2006Youth 79 in , 2008. Our null findings would suggest the possibility that these mixed findings in the same country using the same instruments might originate from the oddities of small samples or the period heterogeneity and/or publication bias.…”

Sibship and Inequality Beliefs: Do Siblings Have a Liberalizing or Conservatizing Effect?

“…It seems possible that having an especially positive or negative relationship(s) with a sibling(s) could influence one's views on cultural beliefs, of which inequality beliefs are one type. Ideally, we also would like to analyze other structural aspects of sibling relationships such as spacing and gender but the GSS only collected limited data on these dynamics for a single survey year (see Urbatsch 2011).…”

“…Using the one year of General Social Survey data with those sibling measures, the author finds that having a next older sister has a liberalizing effect on public policy support. Urbatsch (2011) suggested this is a result of women's more liberal ideological leaning (relative to men's) and the influence an older sibling close in age has on a younger sibling.…”