Mobility and Political Orientation

Abstract

Public attention recently has been drawn to the existence of a “gender gap” in public opinion and electoral politics in the United States. Yet the reasons for this sex difference in politics are unclear. Do men and women have differences of political orientation that are independent of social class differences or do sex differences in politics reflect different class experiences for men and women? This research uses national survey data to compare the political effects of social mobility for three groups of respondents: Males, women employed for wages outside the home, and housewives. I predict that women who are mobile by virtue of their own occupational status will have political orientations close to those of their class-of-destination, while women who are mobile by virtue of a spouse's occupation will retain political orientations similar to those of their class-of-origin. Further, I predict that the difference between the relationship of social mobility and political orientation for employed men and women will decline as women's overall labor force participation increases. In a log-linear analysis of presidential candidate selection from 1948 to 1980, I find that marital and occupational mobility do have different effects on women's political orientation, but the direction of political change across mobility statuses was not consistent. There is no convergence over time in the pattern whereby mobility status is related to political choice for men and women.