Men with only sisters more likely to be conservative, says study

Researchers have been attempting to pinpoint various social and biological factors that contribute to a person's political inclinations for years now. Previous research has linked conservative viewpoints with a area of the brain associated with fear and liberal viewpoints with an area of the brain more comfortable with uncertainty.

But now, new research from Stanford University and Loyola Marymount University suggests that American boys raised with only sisters are 13.5 per cent more likely to have traditional views on the division of labour and household chores than boys with only male siblings. The effect was even stronger when the first born was male.

Boys with only sisters were also 15 per cent more likely to identify as a Republican in high school, though this diminished sharply into middle age. And by middle age, they were 17 per cent more likely to report that their spouses did more housework than them compared with men who had only brothers.

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On the other hand, having only sisters instead of brothers had no significant effect on girls.

“These effects were surprising to us," says Andrew Healy, one of the study authors, in a press release. "We might expect that boys would learn to support gender equity through interactions with their sisters. However, the data suggest that other forces are more important in driving men’s political attitudes, including whether the family assigned chores, such as dishwashing, according to traditional gender roles."

The study authors, Healy and Neil Malhotra, analyzed data from two large American studies which began in 1965 and sampled 1,669 high school students, asking them a range of questions throughout their lives up until age 50.

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The researchers speculate that boys with only sisters spend their childhood watching their female siblings do more housework, and thus, come to expect that same division of labour in their marriages. They also guess that boys with only brothers tend to share household duties more equally with their siblings.

Other research has found that people with traditional views on gender roles are 25 per cent more politically conservative.

What are your thoughts on the findings of this study? Do they surprise you at all?