I’m Doing This for My Daughter: An Examination of the Daughter Effect in the 2016 and 2020 Presidential Elections

Abstract

Does having a daughter alter candidate evaluations and political attitudes? Some research provides evidence of a daughter effect, whereas others report null effects. In a pre-registered plan, we hypothesized that parents of daughters would hold more liberal policy attitudes toward gender-specific issues, particularly among men and Republicans. However, in contrast to previous research, we hypothesized null effects of having a daughter on more stable political orientations such as party identification. We test our expectations using multiple data sources to study the 2016 election– one in which issues of gender equality, harassment, and representation played out. Our expectations regarding the absence of a daughter effect are borne out for political orientations. In addition, we also found few and inconsistent daughter effects on gender-specific attitudes, suggesting that having a daughter is unlikely to engender egalitarian gender attitudes. A follow-up study from the 2020 presidential election produced similar results.