Why women vote the way they do

Politicians have long known that women's votes are to a large extent determined by whether they are married or not, and whether they work outside the home or not. Married women, especially homemakers, tend to vote Republican, while working single women tend to vote Democratic. New research is helping to explain why this is the case.

Both values and economics explain why marriage and work have political implications for women. A recent study by economist Mahshid Jalilvand of the University of Wisconsin, for example, found that religion was relatively more important for women who do not work outside the home than for women who do, while economic and political issues were relatively more important to working women than nonworking women.

Other studies show clearly that divorce has a strong tendency to make women vote Democratic. According to a new paper by economists Lena Edlund and Rohini Pande of Columbia University, this is mainly because divorce generally reduces the standard of living for women, while increasing it for men. "Marriage tends to make a woman more Republican, whereas divorce tends to make her more Democratic," they conclude.

Thus basic politics is one reason why Republicans wanted a tax credit for children, in order to make it easier financially for mothers to stay at home with their children, and why the Bush administration has been strongly pushing a federal initiative to encourage marriage and discourage divorce. Both efforts help encourage Republican voting among women.

Ironically, however, it turns out that another Republican initiative, which would strengthen work requirements for those on welfare, is pushing in the opposite direction. According to a June 3 report in The New York Times, the 1996 welfare reform legislation, which instituted work requirements for welfare recipients for the first time, has had the effect of reducing marriage rates among women.

It turns out that once women were forced off welfare and into jobs, two things happened. On the one hand, many did so well on their own that they no longer felt as much economic pressure to marry. On the other hand, they are now so busy with work and child-raising, they have no time for relationships.

Economic pressures are also affecting the marriage patterns of middle-class working women. According to a new paper by economists Eric Gould and Daniele Paserman of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, increasing wage inequality encourages women to wait longer and search harder for a well-to-do mate. This may be the result of increased earnings by females, increasing numbers of whom now make more than their male counterparts. From an economic point of view, marriage has little to offer such women unless they can greatly increase their standard of living by marrying especially well.

It is not only economists who are making interesting findings about women and marriage. On May 29, Cornell biologist Kevin McGraw published a study that used personal ads in various newspapers to determine what male characteristics were attractive to women in different American cities. In general, he found that the bigger and more expensive a city is to live in, the more women are interested in finding a man able to provide them with material comforts. Words suggesting this include "financially stable" and "professional" in personal ads.

By contrast, women living in smaller, less expensive cities tend to put more emphasis on emotional aspects or the personal interests of potential mates, and less on materialism. Thus, in cities like Los Angeles and Boston, material resources rated more highly, while in Montgomery, Ala., and Kansas City, things such as being a good listener and having shared hobbies count for more.

One of the funny things to jump out from the McGraw study is that women rate men's physical appearance higher in Washington, D.C., than anywhere else. Forty-two percent of personal ads listed attractiveness as the primary male attribute. Only a third of Los Angeles women did so and just 21 percent in Montgomery. Washington women also ranked dead last in their need for emotional support and well below most large cities in a desire for well-to-do men, based on their personal ads.

I can only speculate that because Washington has such a high number of very well-paid professional women, many need neither financial nor emotional support from a relationship. In a sense, therefore, they are more like men in their relationship requirements. They are primarily interested in physical attractiveness because they can afford it, and because it advertises their wealth and power to their peers. A woman stuck in a low-paying, dead-end job in the middle of nowhere can't afford to be so choosy.

If single working women are becoming more like men in terms of their interests in the opposite sex, as a result of their rising incomes, eventually they may become more like men in their voting, as well.

I believe researchers would do themselves a big favor by looking more to the obvious. For both sexes, the more the individual is, or desires to be, independent, the more likely the person is to be a Republican. Actual or desired dependency will correlate well with being a Democrat.

One of the funny things to jump out from the McGraw study is that women rate men's physical appearance higher in Washington, D.C., than anywhere else.

My guess is this is more important to women than they let on.

"Politicians have long known that women's votes are to a large extent determined by whether they are married or not, and whether they work outside the home or not." (TownHall)

No. Women's votes - like men's - are largely a referendum on their region, followed by their race.

For Bush to have won 1/3-black South Carolina by 16 points, he had to have won virtually every European-American vote there - women as well as men. Same here in 1/4-black North Carolina, which he won by 13.

Show any math by which he could have won these two Red Nation states by the margins he did when they were so heavily black - without his winning virtually all nonblack votes, women as well as men, married or single, urban as well as rural, poor or rich.

As I don my flame-proof asbestos underwear, I will simply remark:

Women tend to use emotion to make voting decisions; Men tend to use reason.

It is no accident that issues termed "Women's Issues" are, almost without exception, leftist ones. "For the children" is a brazen attempt to engage the maternal instincts and shut down the cortex.

--Boris

This is a total and complete fallacy!!

Women vote almost identical to men in every demographic group.

The "total" numbers of votes cast by women, are greatly skewed almost entirely by the black vote.

Because blacks vote 95% democrat, and because female black voters comprise nearly all of the black vote, it distorts the overall picture.

If you dig deeper, and see how white women voted, it was nearly identical to white men.

Up to 33% of adult black men have felonies on their record, which prevents them from voting. This came out in Florida last year where it was shown that over 30% of adult black men in Florida were prohibited from voting. In other states, it ranges from 20% to 33% of black men being ineligable to vote.

Thus, most of the black voters are female. When you look at the black vote(95% democrat), you are also looking at mostly female votes.

Another example would be to look at a state which has no blacks in it, like North Dakota. The male - female votes(not distorted by a black vote) are always nearly identical, no difference between them.

I am sorry, but you dont know anything about what you are talking about.

The wierd numbers for Washington DC, is because Washington DC is almost entirely black. There are no white voters in Washington DC.

You also speculate wrong, VERY WRONG!!!

Washington does NOT have a high number of very well-paid professional women, Washington is VERY poor!! The high paid women that work in Washington live in Maryland and Virginia, NOT Washington DC.

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