The Impact of Spousal Characteristics on Political Attitudes in Australia

Abstract

Over the past 2 decades, political analysts have devoted considerable attention to gender differences in political behavior and attitudes (see Evans 1980; Randall 1987). Despite this increase in research activity, however, the influence of spousal background characteristics on the formation of political attitudes and behavior has rarely been investigated. In an effort to remedy this situation, this note focuses on the degree to which the social background characteristics of married men and women determine both their own political attitudes and the political attitudes of their spouses. The data are from the Australian National Social Science Survey (NSSS), conducted in 1984-85. From an original nationwide sample of 3,012 adults aged 18 and over, we present findings for married respondents and their spouses, for whom data were collected separately (N = 1,120 couples).' Dependent variables include political partisanship (coded 1 for Liberal-National and 0 for Labor) and four distinct attitudinal scales measuring, in turn, attitudes toward economic issues (a measure that combines support for economic conservatism, support for inequality in earnings, and support for less government spending on social services), attitudes on the desired type of political system (comprising support for the role of the British monarchy in Australia and a negative view of communism), attitudes toward the environment (operationalized in terms of less protection for the environment and support for uranium mining), and attitudes to women's issues (measured in terms of antiabortion and anti-women's careers scales).2 All