Family Ties? The Limits of Fathering Daughters on Congressional Behavior

• Author: Jesse H. Rhodes,Tatishe Nteta,Mia Costa,Elizabeth A. Sharrow,Jill S. Greenlee
• Published date: 01 May 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X19826273
• Date: 01 May 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X19826273

American Politics Research

2019, Vol. 47(3) 471 –493

© The Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X19826273

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Article

Family Ties? The Limits

of Fathering Daughters

on Congressional

Behavior

Mia Costa1, Jill S. Greenlee2, Tatishe Nteta3,

Jesse H. Rhodes3, and Elizabeth A. Sharrow3

Abstract

Scholars have long suggested that familial life can affect political behavior and,

more recently, have found that fathering daughters leads men to adopt more

liberal positions on gender equality policies. However, few have focused on

the impact of fathering a daughter on congressional behavior, particularly

in an era of heightened partisan polarization. Using an original data set of

familial information, we examine whether fathering a daughter influences

male legislators’ (a) roll call and cosponsorship support for women’s issues

in the 110th to 114th Congresses and (b) cosponsorship of bills introduced

by female legislators in the 110th Congress. We find that once party

affiliation is taken into account, having a daughter neither predicts support

for women’s issues nor cosponsorship of bills sponsored by women. Our

findings suggest there are limits to the direct effects of parenting daughters

on men’s political behavior, and that scholars should remain attentive to

institutional and partisan contexts.

Keywords

Congress, cosponsorship, parenthood, gender, legislative behavior

1Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

2Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA

3University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA

Corresponding Author:

Mia Costa, Dartmouth College, Silsby Hall, Hanover, NH 03755, USA.

Email: mia.costa@dartmouth.edu

826273APRXXX10.1177/1532673X19826273American Politics ResearchCosta et al.

research-article2019

472 American Politics Research 47(3)

Sociologists and political scientists have long argued that family life influ-

ences political attitudes and behaviors (see, e.g., Elder & Greene, 2012;

Glass, Bengtson, & Dunham, 1986; Green, Palmquist, & Schickler, 2002;

Greenlee, 2014; Hellwege & Bryant, 2017). Although these studies are

focused primarily on the influence of familial dynamics on the political

behavior of the mass public, Ebonya Washingon (2008) sought to extend

these insights to the study of congressional behavior. In her article, “Female

Socialization: How Daughters Affect Their Legislator Fathers’ Voting on

Women’s Issues,” she suggests that previous studies of the behavior of mem-

bers of Congress omitted an important explanatory variable from their analy-

ses: the gender of representatives’ children. Washington argued that, by

increasing sympathy for women’s issues and gender inequality, the experi-

ence of parenting daughters would lead legislators to adopt more liberal atti-

tudes. Using roll call data from the 105th to the 108th Congresses, Washington

found that as the number of daughters fathered by a representative increased,

the likelihood that the representative supported bills favorable to women’s

interests, particularly those concerning reproductive rights, also increased.

Washington’s finding stimulated a new area of research regarding the influ-

ence of fathering daughters on the behavior of other male elites, such as

judges (Glynn & Sen, 2015) and corporate executives (Cronqvist & Yu, 2017;

M. Dahl, Dezső, & Ross, 2012).

Yet, in the years since Washington’s study, much has changed within the

institution of Congress. Most notably, party leaders, with the support of activ-

ists and affiliated interest groups, increasingly control the behavior of rank

and file members through the strategic use of their agenda setting powers,

committee assignments, staffing decisions, and campaign contributions

(Aldrich, 1995; Binder, 1997; Cox & McCubbins, 1993, 2005; LaRaja &

Schaffner, 2015; Pearson, 2015; Rohde, 1991; Theriault, 2008). Members of

Congress have relatively little latitude to deviate from the directives of party

leaders, and such pressures are thought to help explain rising partisan polar-

ization in congressional policy making (Layman, Carsey, & Horowitz, 2006;

Schaffner, 2011; Theriault, 2008). Given the dramatic increase of partisan

polarization in Congress (for a review see Schaffner, 2011), does fathering a

daughter continue to exert a discernable effect on the behavior of male

legislators?

In this article, we build on Washington’s research by examining the impact

of fatherhood of daughters on both male legislators’ support (via roll call vot-

ing and cosponsorship) for issues of import to women and their willingness

to cosponsor legislation introduced by female members. Using data from the

110th to the 114th Congress, we find that once party affiliation is taken into

account, fathering a daughter predicts neither support for gendered policies