Still, I find it interesting that a point many defenders of women’s suffrage would still argue is accepted as a given by at least some scientists:
Professor Andrew Oswald, from Warwick University, and Dr Nattavudh Powdthavee, of York University, wrote in an unpublished article that has been submitted to an economics journal: “This paper provides evidence that daughters make people more Left-wing, while having sons, by contrast, makes them more Right-wing.” Professor 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”.
Of course, a cynic might suspect that this is because many parents have lower expectations for their daughters, believe they are less capable of taking responsibility for themselves, and want them to have government support so they don’t have to provide it themselves. Back when I graduated, it was still fairly common for young female graduates from good schools to expect to live off Mommy and Daddy for a while in a way that the young male graduates simply couldn’t. No doubt the fact that almost four-fifths of graduates won’t find full-time jobs right after college this year will have an impact on this pattern, but it still would be interesting to know what percentage of women from expensive private universities go to work after graduating compared to their male counterparts.
The elite institutions are of interest because if one wants to look at the socio-sexual patterns, it’s useless to waste time on the classes where everyone has to work just to pay the bills. Of course, under Obama, that description will probably apply to an increasing percentage of households.