scholarly journals Differential fertility makes society more conservative on family values

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (14) ◽  
pp. 7696-7701
Author(s):  
Tom S. Vogl ◽  
Jeremy Freese
Keyword(s):  
Family Size ◽  
Public Support ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Family Values ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Differential Fertility ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Traditional Family ◽  
Evolutionary Forces ◽  
Family Issues

Data from the General Social Survey indicate that higher-fertility individuals and their children are more conservative on “family values” issues, especially regarding abortion and same-sex marriage. This pattern implies that differential fertility has increased and will continue to increase public support for conservative policies on these issues. The association of family size with conservatism is specific to traditional-family issues and can be attributed in large part to the greater religiosity and lower educational attainment of individuals from larger families. Over the 2004 to 2018 period, opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion was 3 to 4 percentage points more prevalent than it would have been were traditional-family conservatism independent of family size in the current generation. For same-sex marriage, evolutionary forces have grown in relative importance as society as a whole has liberalized. As of 2018, differential fertility raised the number of US adults opposed to same-sex marriage by 17%, from 46.9 million to 54.8 million.

scholarly journals Attitudinal Change, Cohort Replacement, and the Liberalization of Attitudes about Same-sex Relationships, 1973–2018

2021 ◽  
pp. 073112142199485
Author(s):  
Ashley Wendell Kranjac ◽  
Robert L. Wagmiller
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Individual Change ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Population Turnover ◽  
Demographic Processes ◽  
Lesbian And Gay Rights ◽  
Using Data

Americans’ attitudes toward same-sex relationships have liberalized considerably over the last 40 years. We examine how the demographic processes generating social change in attitudes toward same-sex relationships changed over time. Using data from the 1973 to 2018 General Social Survey and decomposition techniques, we estimate the relative contributions of intracohort change and cohort replacement to overall social change for three different periods. We examine (1) the period prior to the rapid increase in attitude liberalization toward same-sex marriage rights (1973–1991), (2) the period of contentious debate about same-sex marriage and lesbian and gay rights (1991–2002), and (3) the period of legislative and judicial liberalization at the state and federal levels (2002–2018). We find that both intracohort and intercohort change played positive and significant roles in the liberalization of attitudes toward same-sex relationships in the postlegalization period, but that individual change was more important than population turnover over this period.

scholarly journals Moving a Mountain: The Extraordinary Trajectory of Same-Sex Marriage Approval in the United States

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 237802311772765 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Small Set ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Election Studies

Most public opinion attitudes in the United States are reasonably stable over time. Using data from the General Social Survey and the American National Election Studies, I quantify typical change rates across all attitudes. I quantify the extent to which change in same-sex marriage approval (and liberalization in attitudes toward gay rights in general) are among a small set of rapid changing outliers in surveyed public opinions. No measured public opinion attitude in the United States has changed more and more quickly than same-sex marriage. I use survey data from Newsweek to illustrate the rapid increase in the 1980s and 1990s in Americans who had friends or family who they knew to be gay or lesbian and demonstrate how contact with out-of-the-closet gays and lesbians was influential. I discuss several potential historical and social movement theory explanations for the rapid liberalization of attitudes toward gay rights in the United States, including the surprising influence of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

‘A lesbian with family values’: Gender and Sexuality in Ruth Davidson’s Leadership of the Contemporary Scottish Conservative Party

2020 ◽  
pp. 95-106
Author(s):  
Jennifer Thomson
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Family Values ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
General Election ◽  
Political Leader ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Same Sex Marriage

This chapter focuses on Ruth Davidson’s position as a gay female political leader, looking at how gender and sexuality have figured in her media coverage, self-presentation and her own political positions from her election as leader of the Scottish Conservative Party in 2011 to her resignation in 2019. It moves chronologically from her election as leader to 2019, focusing on key moments – primarily the passage of same-sex marriage in Scotland; the Conservative-DUP confidence-and-supply arrangement following the 2017 general election; and the publication of Davidson’s 2018 book, Yes She Can. The chapter argues that Davidson can be seen as part of a broader trajectory within contemporary British conservatism concerning attitudes towards women in the party and politics on sexuality.

scholarly journals Same sex families and children

Stanovnistvo ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zorica Mrsevic
Keyword(s):  
Birth Rate ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Family Values ◽  
Sex Partners ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Raising Children ◽  
Traditional Family ◽  
Love Story ◽  
American States ◽  
Low Birth Rate

Introduction comprises the information on two main forms of same sex families, civic partnership (same sex partnership) and same sex marriage. Countries and various status modalities of legal regulations are mentioned. The main part of the text is dedicated to presentation of the findings of the most recent research on various aspects regarding children of same sex partnerships. It comprises presentations grouped in four main chapters: acceptance of same sex partnerships, acceptance of legal recognition of the same sex partnerships, family plans of homosexual teenagers, and raising children within and by the same sex partners. Also the real life cases mirroring legal changes through their life destinies are presented, such is e.g. the Irish way to legalization of the same sex partnerships. In addition, a love story of two women crowned by giving birth of their four children is mentioned. Reasons against and negative reactions the author puts under the title Homophobia. In the Concluding remarks, the author presents the most recent examples of legal changes happened in Norway, Ecuador, and in the American states of California and Connecticut. It was also stated that in European countries of low birth rate, the same sex families are inevitably identified as one of demographically valuable source of creating and raising children, which is worthy to be supported, rather than being hindered without reason and discriminated. Although different than a model of heterosexual family, same sex partnerships neither are harrowing to traditional family values, nor reflex of any kind of promiscuous, antisocial behavior, avoidance of parenthood, and negation of family. Quite opposite, these families are an outcome of endeavors of homosexuals not to be deprived of family, parenthood and all of other values of stabile, monogamous, emotional/sexual socially accepted and legally recognized and regulated conventional family. .

The Importance of Public Meaning for Political Persuasion

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deva Woodly
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Sexual Relationships ◽  
The Political ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Criteria ◽  
Political Persuasion

There have been many retrospective analyses written about the marriage-equality movement since the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling that made marriages between people of the same sex legal in all 50 states. Most attribute that triumph to a stunningly swift turnaround in public comfort with and approval of same-sex relationships. However, public opinion data indicates that this narrative is inaccurate. In 2015, 51% of General Social Survey respondents declared that they found sexual relationships between people of the same sex to be “wrong” at least “some of the time.” Nevertheless, at the same time, 56% of respondents affirmed that people of the same sex ought to have the legal right to marry. This dissonance suggests that the most common narrative about the success of the movement misses something crucial about how political persuasion happened in this case, as well as the way that political persuasion happens in general. In this article, I show that the massive shift in support for same-sex marriage was likely not the result of large majorities changing their underlying attitudes regarding gay sexual relationships, but was instead the result of activists inserting new criteria for evaluating same-sex marriage into popular political discourse by consistently using resonant arguments. These arguments reframed the political stakes, changed the public meaning of the marriage debate, and altered the decisional context in which people determine their policy preferences.

scholarly journals Should Mary and Jane Be Legal? Americans' Attitudes toward Marijuana and Same-Sex Marriage Legalization, 1988-2014

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Landon Schnabel
Keyword(s):  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Marijuana Legalization ◽  
The Government ◽  
Precipitous Decline

Marijuana and same-sex marriage are two of the fastest changing and most widely debated opinion and policy issues in the United States. Previous research has examined public opinion on marijuana legalization and same-sex marriage legalization individually, but has neglected to examine these two issues together. We use General Social Survey data from 1988 to 2014 to compare four groups: (1) those who support neither, (2) those who support marijuana but not same-sex marriage legalization, (3) those who support marriage but not marijuana legalization, and (4) those who support both. This study provides four key findings: (1) marijuana and same-sex marriage attitudes have changed simultaneously; (2) most people hold these attitudes in tandem, and there has been a precipitous decline in the percentage of people who support legalizing neither and a remarkable increase in the percentage who support legalizing both; (3) attitudes toward both issues are liberalizing across all social and ideological groups, suggesting a society-wide redefinition of both behaviors as publicly accepted issues of individual autonomy; (4) the support bases for marijuana and marriage legalization vary systematically by sociodemographic characteristics. We conclude that notions of individual autonomy may be increasingly important to the American public and their beliefs about what the government should regulate.

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