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Sons And Daughters Decide Your Political Inclinations

by Tanya Thomas on May 26 2009 10:17 AM

Researchers have found that fathers of daughters politically lean to the Left-wing because girls are more socially conscious.

Economists claim that they have found a link between the number of daughters and sons in a household and their father's political views.

The researchers analysed data in the British Household Panel Survey, and found that 67 per cent of parents with three sons and no daughters voted for Labour or the Liberal Democrats.

However, the figure skyrocketed to 77 per cent in households with three daughters and no sons.

In the study, the scientists observed a similar pattern among families with two and four children.

"This paper provides evidence that daughters make people more Left-wing, while having sons, by contrast, makes them more Right-wing," the Telegraph quoted Professor Andrew Oswald, from Warwick University, and Dr Nattavudh Powdthavee, of York University as saying.

Oswald said that having daughters made men "gradually shift their political stance and become more sympathetic to the 'female' desire for a ... larger amount for the public good."

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He said: "They become more Left-wing. Similarly, a mother with sons becomes sympathetic to the 'male' case for lower taxes and a smaller supply of public goods. Political feelings are much less independently chosen than people realise. Children mould their parents."

Even researchers who looked at voting records of US congressmen before and after having children have found a similar pattern, and noted that the arrival of daughters had a particularly strong effect on fathers.

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However, Arthur Mayne, a biologist with three sons, dismissed the approach as "simplistic" and claimed that the idea that women were "more likely to be softer politically than men" could be seen as a stereotype.

Source-ANI
TAN


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