Conservatives Tend to Care More About Family Values
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Political Science
No, Republicans Aren't Hypocrites on Family Values
Setting aside the behavior of certain GOP politicians, the data show that Red America is hardly the country of cleaved families and libertine behavior depicted in the press.
Today, Roy Moore stands every bit Exhibit A in bourgeois hypocrisy when information technology comes to family values—maxim one thing in public and doing another in private. Yesterday, it was others: Plenty of Republican leaders, from Newt Gingrich to Donald Trump to Joe Barton, have failed to practice the values conservatives preach. Simply are conservatives outside of the political course declining to live up to the family unit values associated with the right since the 1980s?
In the wake of the Moore scandal, a spate of articles on evangelicals, fundamentalists and conservatives have fabricated simply this case, arguing that conservatives of one stripe or some other are family values hypocrites. Writing in The New York Times, for case, Nicholas Kristof recently wrote, "conservatives thunder about 'family values' only don't do them." To add together insult to injury, Kristof also argued that information technology is actually "liberals [who] practice the values that conservatives preach." His primary evidence: Cherry states ofttimes do worse than blue states when it comes to family unit-related outcomes such as divorce and teen pregnancy.
Here, Kristof is indebted to a book by family unit scholars Naomi Cahn and June Carbone, Crimson Families v. Blue Families, which makes the instance that bluish states have more successful and stable families than do red states. Arkansas, for instance, has one of the highest divorce rates in the nation, whereas Massachusetts has one of the lowest. Cahn and Carbone become on to debate that blue families, more red families, "encourage their children to simultaneously combine public tolerance with individual bailiwick, and their children then overwhelmingly choose to raise their own children within two-parent families." In other words, blueish Americans are more than successful at forging exactly the sort of stable, ii-parent families that cerise Americans say they support.
But this state-based argument obscures more than than information technology illuminates about the links between partisanship and family life for ordinary families in America. Scholars and journalists who take bought into the idea that red Americans are hypocrites on family unit values considering some red states do poorly when information technology comes to family unit stability are committing what is chosen the "ecological fallacy" of conflating the family unit behaviors of individual conservatives with the family behaviors of states dominated by conservatives. Then, while it is truthful Republican states in the Southward have more family unit instability than Democratic states in the North, that does not hateful Republicans as individuals necessarily take more than unstable families than Democrats as individuals.
Indeed, when we look not at states only at counties in the United States, we see that counties that lean Republican beyond the land as a whole have more than matrimony, less nonmarital childbearing, and more family stability than counties that lean Democratic. In fact, an Plant for Family unit Studies study I authored found, "teens in cerise counties are more than likely to exist living with their biological parents, compared to children living in bluer counties." So, even at the community level, the story virtually spousal relationship and family unit instability looks a lot different depending on whether or non one is looking at state or county trends. At the canton level, so, the argument that Red America is doing worse than Blue America isn't true.
Finally, when we turn to the individual level, the conservatives-are-family-values-hypocrites thesis actually falls autonomously. Republicans are more likely to be married, and happily married, than independents and Democrats, every bit Nicholas Wolfinger and I recently showed in a research brief for the Establish for Family Studies. They are besides less likely to cheat on their spouses and less likely to be divorced, compared with independents and Democrats. Then, Donald Trump is the exception, not the norm, for Republicans.
Family patterns for parents are especially noteworthy, since children are more probable to thrive when they are raised past stably married parents in good relationships. When nosotros look at parents ages 18 to 55 in the United states of america, equally the figures above and below indicate, we find that Republican parents are significantly more likely to be in their first marriage and, if married, to say they are "very happy" in their marriages, according to the Full general Social Survey, a nationally representative survey conducted by the Academy of Chicago that tracks a range of American attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, 61 percent of Republican parents are in their first marriage, compared with 50 percent of Democrats and 46 pct of independents. Likewise, Republican married parents are at least 6 per centum points more than likely to say they are very happy in their marriages compared with Democrats and independents.
When it comes to family stability, Republican parents are less likely to exist divorced. In fact, Republican parents who have ever been married are at least 5 percentage points less probable to have been divorced, compared with their fellow citizens. The 2017 American Family unit Survey likewise indicates Republicans are less probable to have their first kid outside of marriage, compared with Democrats and independents. And then, contra Kristof, it's actually Republicans, non Democrats, who are more likely to enjoy a stable, happy family life anchored effectually wedlock.
What's too fascinating nearly looking at the individual data is that it suggests that the relatively fragile country of families in the Republican S does not apply as much to individual Republicans in the South. Indeed, in both the North and the South, Republican parents are at to the lowest degree 9 percentage points more than likely to be in their first marriage, compared with Democrats and independents. The figure also reveals how the ecological fallacy works: Simply because the Republican S has more than family fragility does non hateful that Republican families are fragile. In fact, Republican parents in the South are more likely to be in their first spousal relationship than Autonomous and independent parents in the Northward.
In other words, even though Southerners in general are at greater risk of family instability than Northerners, Republicans in the South savour markedly higher levels of family stability than their fellow citizens—a family stability advantage that puts them above Democrats and independents in the North. Another fashion to put this: Information technology'southward bluish and purple Americans in the South who are really pulling downwardly family stability in the South, not scarlet Americans.
A similar story plays out for education. When American parents are separated by whether or not they accept a college degree, it turns out that Republican parents take about a 10-per centum-point reward in the likelihood that they are in their get-go marriage. In both college-educated communities and less-educated communities, then, it looks similar Republican parents are more probable to be raising their children in their showtime union.
Some might wonder if these trends are driven past race and ethnicity, given that African-Americans and Hispanics are less likely to exist raising their children in stable, married homes. And that is certainly part of the story. Only even if we limit our focus to whites, we even so see that white Republican parents are more likely to be in their kickoff marriage. Specifically, 62 pct of white Republican parents are in their beginning union, compared with 54 percent of white Autonomous and 44 pct of white independent parents.
Finally, given that Republicans are more likely to exist religious than are Democrats, isn't this Republican reward an artifact of more than religiosity amongst the Republican ranks? Not entirely. When nosotros break out parents by those who attend religious services oft (several times a month or more) versus parents who attend infrequently or never, Republicans still have an advantage in both the more than religious and less religious groups. In fact, in both groups, Republican parents are more than likely to be in first marriages than their swain citizens. Moreover, fifty-fifty after controlling for religiosity, every bit well as education, race, ethnicity, region and age, the data point that Republican parents are still more than likely to be in their first union, compared with Democrats.
The Republican advantage when it comes to stable, happy marriages beyond regional, educational and religious lines makes sense for at least three reasons. Showtime, Republicans are more than likely to embrace marriage-minded values and live in communities that embrace such values, similar the importance of marrying for life and raising children in a ii-parent family; and these values do influence behavior. Every bit David Leonhardt of The New York Times observed, the "red model highlights the importance of local cultures that celebrate marriage every bit an important function of most stable, prosperous families—rather than just some other option that's no better or worse than any other."
2nd, considering married parents are more prosperous and less dependent on government for their financial security, they are less probable to gravitate to the Democratic Party and more likely to gravitate to the party of modest government and lower taxes. Indeed, counties with large numbers of lower-income single parents are more than likely to lean Democratic, partly considering the Autonomous Party supports policies designed to provide them with more financial security. The figure below is illustrative of the link between family structure and voting at the county level in 2016.
Third, it may be that Republican personality traits—such as their optimism or disfavor to risk or conscientiousness—make them somewhat better or more stable spouses. That is, the kind of people who are more probable to identify as Republican may be more than probable to form and maintain stable marriages and families, compared with Democrats and independents who tend to exist somewhat more than inclined to appoint in risky behavior or to await at the earth through a critical lens.
Regardless of the reason, though, what is clear from the data is that the charge that ordinary Republicans preach family unit values but don't practice family values is unwarranted. At least today, most Republicans don't alive lives like Donald Trump or Newt Gingrich: In fact, they are more than likely to exist stably married, happily married, and faithful than Democrats and independents in America. The question, of course, is whether this Republican family unit advantage will persist if Republicans keep anointing leaders who don't practice the family unit values the political party has preached.
Source: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/28/no-republicans-arent-hypocrites-on-family-values-215873
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