TY  - JOUR
AU  - Washington,Ebonya
TI  - Female Socialization: How Daughters Affect Their Legislator Fathers' Voting on Women's Issues
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11924
PY  - 2006
Y2  - January 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11924
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11924.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Ebonya L. Washington
Yale University
Box 8264
37 Hillhouse, Room 36
New Haven, CT 06520
Tel: 203/432-9901
Fax: 203/432-6323
E-Mail: ebonya.washington@yale.edu
AB  - Economists have long concerned themselves with environmental influences, such as neighborhood, peers and family on individuals' beliefs and behaviors. However, the impact of children on parents' behavior has been little studied. Parenting daughters, psychologists have shown, increases feminist sympathies. I test the hypothesis that children, much like neighbors or peers, can influence adult behavior. I demonstrate that the propensity to vote liberally on reproductive rights is significantly increasing in a congress person's proportion of daughters. The result demonstrates not only the relevance of child to parent behavioral influence, but also the importance of personal ideology in a legislator's voting decisions as it is not explained away by voter preferences.
ER  -