Marriage and conservative politics

[ProgressiveModerate]

Polls and exit polls regularly suggest married people are  to the right of unmarried people.

This might be sort of a chicken or egg question, but do you think conservative people are more likely to get married, marriage makes people more conservative, or both?

[TML]

I think both of these elements are at play here.

Nowadays, people who focus more on their personal lives first (i.e. getting married and/or having children) tend to be from more conservative backgrounds, while people who focus more on their professional lives first (i.e. achieving financial stability) tend to be more liberal in their thinking. Once people get married, however, this may create a situation where the married couple may wish to avoid paying higher taxes, and they may also wish for their children to be educated with good moral values, both of which would cause a conservative swing.

[Samof94]

What about same sex couples??? I can't imagine two women getting married suddenly supporting some pastor who wants to take away their right to birth control and healthcare.

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

Probably more of an age thing than anything else. At any given moment, married voters are significantly older than unmarried voters.

[Bismarck]

So much of “cultural liberalism” is a rejection of the nuclear family.

[RINO Tom]

Probably more of an age thing than anything else. At any given moment, married voters are significantly older than unmarried voters.

Wouldn't this rely on the "you get more conservative as you get older" argument, though?  Anyway, as somebody who is married and has a newborn son, I will say it's actually pretty easy to see why these people tend to be more conservative.  When you have a family, they are your entire life and everything you do is for them.  You want to give your child all the opportunities you had and more.  Combine that with the fact that you share additional income with a spouse (if he/she works) and get to file taxes jointly, and conservative economic policies benefit your family.

I also just personally think that the experience of getting married and having a child makes you appreciate that these "social constructs" weren't pulled out of thin air ... they developed very logically for a reason as the most productive and rational way for society to thrive in the long term.  That is a pretty conservative outlook.

[mileslunn]

I think home ownership is another big reason as home owners much more likely to be conservative than renters.  Likewise a home owner more likely to live in suburbs while unmarried most likely to live in urban core where people are most liberal.  In rural areas where GOP strongest, people most likely to get married.  It is often said people become more conservative once become a home owner and generally people more likely to buy first home once married as want more space as well as two reliable incomes while if single only one income and if in a relationship two incomes at moment but less reliable if couple breaks up.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I think home ownership is another big reason as home owners much more likely to be conservative than renters.  Likewise a home owner more likely to live in suburbs while unmarried most likely to live in urban core where people are most liberal.  In rural areas where GOP strongest, people most likely to get married.  It is often said people become more conservative once become a home owner and generally people more likely to buy first home once married as want more space as well as two reliable incomes while if single only one income and if in a relationship two incomes at moment but less reliable if couple breaks up.

I wonder if this dynamic begins to change as the class of people who can afford to buy homes skews increasingly more college educated, white collar, and hence D-leaning.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Probably more of an age thing than anything else. At any given moment, married voters are significantly older than unmarried voters.

Wouldn't this rely on the "you get more conservative as you get older" argument, though?  Anyway, as somebody who is married and has a newborn son, I will say it's actually pretty easy to see why these people tend to be more conservative.  When you have a family, they are your entire life and everything you do is for them.  You want to give your child all the opportunities you had and more.  Combine that with the fact that you share additional income with a spouse (if he/she works) and get to file taxes jointly, and conservative economic policies benefit your family.

I also just personally think that the experience of getting married and having a child makes you appreciate that these "social constructs" weren't pulled out of thin air ... they developed very logically for a reason as the most productive and rational way for society to thrive in the long term.  That is a pretty conservative outlook.

Honestly, one of my major criticism of Democrats is that they don't really message much to families - outside of stuff like universal childcare they don't really offer many policies that specifically benefit or encourage families, especially through the economic lens.

My hope is that in the future falling fertility rates push the idea of family more into the mainstream political conversation and more incentives are created for people to start a family. My fear is that as the fertility rate falls, a larger share of the electorate won't have children so mainstream political ideology tends to be less favorable to families

The social construct things is also something I really struggle with as someone one the left, especially as someone on the spectrum. I obviously want everyone to be able to be themselves and treated with respect. People should also be able to find their own versions of happiness in life even if it's not in the "traditional" way. However, I also feel like too few or vague social constructs makes it so there's no baseline for how to interact with community and society at large. The situations I tend to struggle with the most are ones that lack any sort of social norms or expectations because I just have nothing to work off of. I feel more conservative compared to most of my age cohort because even though I'm not religious, I definitely place a value on one day getting married and having a family as a key life goal because it's something specific and tangible and I percieve to have tremdenous value.

[mileslunn]

I think home ownership is another big reason as home owners much more likely to be conservative than renters.  Likewise a home owner more likely to live in suburbs while unmarried most likely to live in urban core where people are most liberal.  In rural areas where GOP strongest, people most likely to get married.  It is often said people become more conservative once become a home owner and generally people more likely to buy first home once married as want more space as well as two reliable incomes while if single only one income and if in a relationship two incomes at moment but less reliable if couple breaks up.

I wonder if this dynamic begins to change as the class of people who can afford to buy homes skews increasingly more college educated, white collar, and hence D-leaning.

In large metro areas or expensive rural counties like ski resorts but lets remember there are a shocking # of counties where average home price is under 100K in US so I suspect in those counties home ownership is really high.  Due to how expensive it is in many Democrat areas I suspect somewhat lower but you are right the more college educated and white collar likely to be home owners.

At same time that cohort tends to have fewer children and I believe divorce rate also higher amongst this group too.  Would be interesting amongst unmarried if broke it further down:

Single - never married
Divorced
Widowed

My guess is first one is the most heavily Democrat.  Second probably pretty close to married and last one might even be slightly more GOP than married as mostly older people but maybe Democrats do better as widows much more likely to be female than male.  Although maybe divorced more Democrat as I suspect more conservative types are less likely to get a divorce even if marriage not working out too well while liberals more likely to get one if feel two are not compatible.  

[David Hume]

Probably more of an age thing than anything else. At any given moment, married voters are significantly older than unmarried voters.

Yet I believe within any age group, married are more conservative than unmarried.

[wnwnwn]

LGTB people doesn't have much incentives to get married.

I suppose unmarried cis-hetero women over 30 leans democrat, but what about cis-hetero men?
I don't see 'longtime bachelor' males as much liberal, outside college profesors and the like.

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

Probably more of an age thing than anything else. At any given moment, married voters are significantly older than unmarried voters.

Wouldn't this rely on the "you get more conservative as you get older" argument, though?  Anyway, as somebody who is married and has a newborn son, I will say it's actually pretty easy to see why these people tend to be more conservative.  When you have a family, they are your entire life and everything you do is for them.  You want to give your child all the opportunities you had and more.  Combine that with the fact that you share additional income with a spouse (if he/she works) and get to file taxes jointly, and conservative economic policies benefit your family.

I also just personally think that the experience of getting married and having a child makes you appreciate that these "social constructs" weren't pulled out of thin air ... they developed very logically for a reason as the most productive and rational way for society to thrive in the long term.  That is a pretty conservative outlook.

I was going more for the "older birth cohorts are inherently more pro-whatever the current 'conservative' status quo is" angle. Of course married voters are going to be more right-wing or less left-wing than non-married (or at least never-married) voters within a specific age group, but no exit poll will have detailed enough crosstabs to show that.

I do feel like the connection between marriage and wanting/having kids is less clear somewhat among my birth cohort, but TBH it could very well be a sample size issue and most of the women in my personal social network still being in their 20s. I haven't really seen women who work in solidly white-collar fields have kids in their 20s even if they're already married. (Nursing isn't white-collar in the sense medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, optometry, and veterinary medicine are- but nursing also doesn't require additional postgraduate education into your later 20s). And this is to say nothing of non-college grads who grew up less well-off and have stayed in LTRs with their high school sweethearts.

I wonder if this dynamic begins to change as the class of people who can afford to buy homes skews increasingly more college educated, white collar, and hence D-leaning.

Becoming sorted into the D base isn't at all incompatible with becoming more small-c conservative in the pro-establishment sense. Partisan voting behavior =/= ideology.

[RINO Tom]

Probably more of an age thing than anything else. At any given moment, married voters are significantly older than unmarried voters.

Wouldn't this rely on the "you get more conservative as you get older" argument, though?  Anyway, as somebody who is married and has a newborn son, I will say it's actually pretty easy to see why these people tend to be more conservative.  When you have a family, they are your entire life and everything you do is for them.  You want to give your child all the opportunities you had and more.  Combine that with the fact that you share additional income with a spouse (if he/she works) and get to file taxes jointly, and conservative economic policies benefit your family.

I also just personally think that the experience of getting married and having a child makes you appreciate that these "social constructs" weren't pulled out of thin air ... they developed very logically for a reason as the most productive and rational way for society to thrive in the long term.  That is a pretty conservative outlook.

Honestly, one of my major criticism of Democrats is that they don't really message much to families - outside of stuff like universal childcare they don't really offer many policies that specifically benefit or encourage families, especially through the economic lens.

My hope is that in the future falling fertility rates push the idea of family more into the mainstream political conversation and more incentives are created for people to start a family. My fear is that as the fertility rate falls, a larger share of the electorate won't have children so mainstream political ideology tends to be less favorable to families

The social construct things is also something I really struggle with as someone one the left, especially as someone on the spectrum. I obviously want everyone to be able to be themselves and treated with respect. People should also be able to find their own versions of happiness in life even if it's not in the "traditional" way. However, I also feel like too few or vague social constructs makes it so there's no baseline for how to interact with community and society at large. The situations I tend to struggle with the most are ones that lack any sort of social norms or expectations because I just have nothing to work off of. I feel more conservative compared to most of my age cohort because even though I'm not religious, I definitely place a value on one day getting married and having a family as a key life goal because it's something specific and tangible and I percieve to have tremdenous value.

One thing I think is really damaging to society healthily balancing (A) letting people "be themselves" and (B) maintaining integral cultural institutions/norms is that we phrase tolerance in a really dysfunctional, unproductive and polarizing way.  The left treats "tolerance" like a creed (look what happens when you remove religion ... you replace it with something as similar as possible!) where those who do not adhere to it are anathema.  It's like those on the left develop a new cultural norm (e.g., "African American" instead of "Black" or something) ... but ACTUALLY don't really have a good reason for doing it ... and then act outraged when people go against this and label them "-ists" or "-phobes."  This, in turn, turns off many people in the middle and unfortunately helps to legitimize actual racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes, etc. by pushing culturally center-right people on to "one side or the other."

What I think would be much healthier is if tolerance were preached from a perspective that purely emphasized kindness.  Reaching people and getting them to avoid using the word "gay" as slang for "lame" because they KNOW a gay man and feel bad using a word like that because of this is MUCH more effective than updating the cultural vocabulary handbook and demanding adherence.  It shouldn't bother a trans person that someone thinks transgenderism is unnatural or due to a mental disorder ... you can't change what others think about you.  The emphasis should not be on changing other people's cultural attitudes, it should be about much more of a "hate the sin, love the sinner" type thing.  I cannot tell you the number of left-leaning people I know in Chicago who are EXTREMELY "tolerant" regarding minorities or LGBT people but talk about poor Appalachian Whites like they are literally subhuman ... tells me all I need to know about where their hearts are in this whole thing, and it completely delegitimizes political correctness as a "rule" for cultural discourse.

I know that was a lot of rambling, but a huge problem I have with the modern left is treating cultural norms like a club and even a game.  If you say "Latinx" because that is what the other members of your tribe are saying, you are just behaving in a cringe and pointless way that legitimizes the claims of those on the far right, IMO.  "Treat others how you would want to be treated" - without needing to change anybody's personal views on cultural issues - would go a long way to help bridge this gap between healthy social conservatism and NECESSARY social liberalism.  I get that there are legal concerns that, say, LGBT people have in some red states, and I am not insensitive to that.  However, my comment is not really about that and with more of a long game in mind.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Probably more of an age thing than anything else. At any given moment, married voters are significantly older than unmarried voters.

Wouldn't this rely on the "you get more conservative as you get older" argument, though?  Anyway, as somebody who is married and has a newborn son, I will say it's actually pretty easy to see why these people tend to be more conservative.  When you have a family, they are your entire life and everything you do is for them.  You want to give your child all the opportunities you had and more.  Combine that with the fact that you share additional income with a spouse (if he/she works) and get to file taxes jointly, and conservative economic policies benefit your family.

I also just personally think that the experience of getting married and having a child makes you appreciate that these "social constructs" weren't pulled out of thin air ... they developed very logically for a reason as the most productive and rational way for society to thrive in the long term.  That is a pretty conservative outlook.

Honestly, one of my major criticism of Democrats is that they don't really message much to families - outside of stuff like universal childcare they don't really offer many policies that specifically benefit or encourage families, especially through the economic lens.

My hope is that in the future falling fertility rates push the idea of family more into the mainstream political conversation and more incentives are created for people to start a family. My fear is that as the fertility rate falls, a larger share of the electorate won't have children so mainstream political ideology tends to be less favorable to families

The social construct things is also something I really struggle with as someone one the left, especially as someone on the spectrum. I obviously want everyone to be able to be themselves and treated with respect. People should also be able to find their own versions of happiness in life even if it's not in the "traditional" way. However, I also feel like too few or vague social constructs makes it so there's no baseline for how to interact with community and society at large. The situations I tend to struggle with the most are ones that lack any sort of social norms or expectations because I just have nothing to work off of. I feel more conservative compared to most of my age cohort because even though I'm not religious, I definitely place a value on one day getting married and having a family as a key life goal because it's something specific and tangible and I percieve to have tremdenous value.

One thing I think is really damaging to society healthily balancing (A) letting people "be themselves" and (B) maintaining integral cultural institutions/norms is that we phrase tolerance in a really dysfunctional, unproductive and polarizing way.  The left treats "tolerance" like a creed (look what happens when you remove religion ... you replace it with something as similar as possible!) where those who do not adhere to it are anathema.  It's like those on the left develop a new cultural norm (e.g., "African American" instead of "Black" or something) ... but ACTUALLY don't really have a good reason for doing it ... and then act outraged when people go against this and label them "-ists" or "-phobes."  This, in turn, turns off many people in the middle and unfortunately helps to legitimize actual racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes, etc. by pushing culturally center-right people on to "one side or the other."

What I think would be much healthier is if tolerance were preached from a perspective that purely emphasized kindness.  Reaching people and getting them to avoid using the word "gay" as slang for "lame" because they KNOW a gay man and feel bad using a word like that because of this is MUCH more effective than updating the cultural vocabulary handbook and demanding adherence.  It shouldn't bother a trans person that someone thinks transgenderism is unnatural or due to a mental disorder ... you can't change what others think about you.  The emphasis should not be on changing other people's cultural attitudes, it should be about much more of a "hate the sin, love the sinner" type thing.  I cannot tell you the number of left-leaning people I know in Chicago who are EXTREMELY "tolerant" regarding minorities or LGBT people but talk about poor Appalachian Whites like they are literally subhuman ... tells me all I need to know about where their hearts are in this whole thing, and it completely delegitimizes political correctness as a "rule" for cultural discourse.

I know that was a lot of rambling, but a huge problem I have with the modern left is treating cultural norms like a club and even a game.  If you say "Latinx" because that is what the other members of your tribe are saying, you are just behaving in a cringe and pointless way that legitimizes the claims of those on the far right, IMO.  "Treat others how you would want to be treated" - without needing to change anybody's personal views on cultural issues - would go a long way to help bridge this gap between healthy social conservatism and NECESSARY social liberalism.  I get that there are legal concerns that, say, LGBT people have in some red states, and I am not insensitive to that.  However, my comment is not really about that and with more of a long game in mind.

I would largely agree with this, I think some factions on the left focuses too much on social purity and idealism in an almost religious way rather than trying to naturally get people to just have greater respect towards people regardless of who they are. I'm definitely someone on the left who tends to believe in a more "color-blind" culture you start out viewing everyone as a neutral person and their identity is developed by their character.

I think one connected problem on the left is that many people bash religions for being (often rightly) problematic and promoting hatred. The issue is they don't have any real alternative about what to replace religion with - over the top PC culture as you point out is in many ways like religion even if it's not officially labeled as so, and it often turns out to be toxic. Religion at it's ideal should be a way for people to bond and bring a diverse community together around shared ideals, but in practice often becomes cultish, hateful, and exclusive. Figuring out how to achieve that ideal or even if it's possible is a huge question.

[Reactionary Libertarian]

Both. Marriage and having children especially tends to make women more conservative.

[Hope For A New Era]

You've fallen into a correlation-causation trap here. The real biggest cause is that married people as a bloc are older than unmarried people.

[Skill and Chance]

I think home ownership is another big reason as home owners much more likely to be conservative than renters.  Likewise a home owner more likely to live in suburbs while unmarried most likely to live in urban core where people are most liberal.  In rural areas where GOP strongest, people most likely to get married.  It is often said people become more conservative once become a home owner and generally people more likely to buy first home once married as want more space as well as two reliable incomes while if single only one income and if in a relationship two incomes at moment but less reliable if couple breaks up.

I wonder if this dynamic begins to change as the class of people who can afford to buy homes skews increasingly more college educated, white collar, and hence D-leaning.

Alternatively, we could end up in a world in which only a socially conservative minority of the population formally marries?  I believe this is already the case in e.g. Scandinavia?

[Skill and Chance]

Probably more of an age thing than anything else. At any given moment, married voters are significantly older than unmarried voters.

Wouldn't this rely on the "you get more conservative as you get older" argument, though?  Anyway, as somebody who is married and has a newborn son, I will say it's actually pretty easy to see why these people tend to be more conservative.  When you have a family, they are your entire life and everything you do is for them.  You want to give your child all the opportunities you had and more.  Combine that with the fact that you share additional income with a spouse (if he/she works) and get to file taxes jointly, and conservative economic policies benefit your family.

I also just personally think that the experience of getting married and having a child makes you appreciate that these "social constructs" weren't pulled out of thin air ... they developed very logically for a reason as the most productive and rational way for society to thrive in the long term.  That is a pretty conservative outlook.

The way you have presented this honestly surprises me.  I wouldn't have thought economics would be reason.

1. Married people generally pay substantially lower taxes than they would working the same jobs as single people.  The one significant exception is if both spouses have high and nearly equal incomes in an area with high state/local taxes.  However, it does sound like that describes your situation pretty well?  More complex things like the estate tax that would be particularly relevant to families have basically been eliminated for anyone who doesn't already have a family lawyer to get around them.   

2. Today's left tends to be more concerned about securing the future and worries more about tail risks/things that might go to infinity and disrupt society's functioning in the long run (climate change, AI, COVID in 2020, even health care and medical bankruptcy risk could fit under this).  Indeed, this is one of the things I admire most about the modern American left.  Today's right is inclined to dismiss this as fear mongering and/or focus on maximizing economic growth in the current year.  It seems to me that married parents would be most worried about the far future?     

IMO there is a subculture of people who make sure to marry in their 20's for religious/social conservative reasons.  It's heavily tied into wanting to be married or at least engaged before you sleep with someone.  However, these are now a distinct minority of all marriages basically everywhere but the rural South and majority-Mormon areas.    In my experience, when married people do have economic gripes from the right, it's because they have a stay-at-home parent and resent having to subsidize childcare, parental leave, etc. for everyone else.  These couples also overwhelmingly come from this subculture and/or own a business (another group that would be predisposed to conservatism even when single). 

I would expect that once you take these people out of the equation, the remaining married couples aren't obviously more conservative than their unmarried peers.  So I would be very inclined to argue it's conservative -> more marriage vs. marriage -> more conservative.