Unmarried Parenthood and Redistributive Politics
1 March 2005
Dr. Laila Haider with Columbia University Professor Lena Edlund and Yale University Professor Rohini Pande
In this article, the authors use political survey data for nine West European countries to show that women have become increasingly left-wing compared to men, and that this trend is positively correlated with the rise of non-marriage in these countries. They show that this pattern is mirrored in German longitudinal data (German Socioeconomic Panel), where transitions out of marriage make women, but not men, significantly more left-leaning. Finally, the authors' analysis of public spending data for high-income Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development countries (1980-1998) suggests that the political impact of non-marriage extends to the allocation of State resources with increases in non-marriage first lowering, and then raising, State transfers towards children.
Lena Edlund, Laila Haider and Rohini Pande, "Unmarried Parenthood and Redistributive Politics," Journal of the European Economic Association, 3:1 (March 2005), pp. 95-119. Copyright 2005 by the European Economic Association.
