US Presidential Elections and the Spatial Pattern of the American Second Demographic Transition

摘要

One of the noteworthy features of many Western countries is the close connection between voting results and indicators of change in patterns of family formation and fertility (e.g., Lesthaeghe and Neels 2002). The United States is no exception to thisrule (Lesthaeghe and Neidert 2006). In fact, both opinions and actual behavior with respect to all issues related to the so-called culture war in the United States are strongly differentiated, in part because the country has a more sizable population belonging to the "religious right" than any other Western country. Issues such as abortion, gay partnership, euthanasia, stem cell research, protection of privacy, censorship, gun control, and capital punishment are recurrent topics on the political agenda. And in tandem with life style differentiation, such issues can produce marked polarization. In other words, it should not come as a surprise that residents of geographic areas with more unconventional forms of family formation, such as cohabitation, children born to cohabiters, postponement of partnership, marriage, and parenthood, and acceptance of interference with fertility through abortion and efficient contraception tend to vote for the Democratic Party. Conversely, voters in areas that retain classic forms of family formation (early marriage and parenthood) and more conventional gender roles should display a preference for the Republican Party. Furthermore, the "culture war" issues were prominent during the Bush-Gore and the Bush-Kerry presidential contests of 2000 and 2004. One of the consequences was that the spatial pattern of US election results, both by state and by county, exhibited a marked correlation with the prevalence of new patterns of family formation (Lesthaeghe and Neidert 2006).