Sibling Gender Effects on Voting Behavior and Attitudes

This paper examines how growing up with a brother versus a sister impacts voting behavior and attitudes. Research on sibling gender effects is marked by endogeneity concerns since the gender of firstborns influences the probability that parents with certain beliefs and preferences will continue to have children. Estimated effects of sibling gender from older siblings on life outcomes of younger siblings are therefore biased. To avoid self-selection of parents into those with female firstborns and those with male firstborns, the analysis is performed on a sample of Australian dizygotic twins. Because I expect gender role development to be an important driver of sibling gender effects, the estimations are also performed on a subsample which only includes twins with a religious family background. Though statistically significant effects were not established in the general sample, I find that men with religious family backgrounds who have brothers are less likely to vote for the Liberal party and more likely to vote for the National party than those who have sisters. Some contextual analysis presents the following facts. Religious women are shown to vote significantly more often for the Liberal party than men independent of their religiosity and the Liberal party has enacted some female-friendly policies at the time. The likelihood of men with sisters to vote for the Liberal party could therefore be driven by an improved understanding of the opposite sex. Finally, sibling gender eects are found for attitudes towards various topics in both the general and religious samples.