December 31, 2012

Marriage Gap, one more time

From a Democratic group working to get more single women to show up to vote, Voter Participation Center, on the 2012 election:

As more data is available from the exit polling, the extent of the marriage gap – the differences in candidate choice between married and unmarried women – becomes more obvious and undeniable. And as this chart make clear: the marriage gap transcends all racial, age, income, education and other distinctions. Young or old, rich or poor, white, black or Hispanic, unmarried women voted overwhelmingly in 2012 to reelect President Obama.

2012 Voter Returns: Obama vs. Romney

Married Women
Obama – Romney
Unmarried Women
Obama – Romney
Marriage Gap
National46 – 5367 – 3143
Battleground States46 – 5365 – 3339
White women37 – 6252 – 4631
Women of color78 – 2291 – 728
Latina67 – 3285 – 1238
African-American95 – 597 – 25
College-educated49 – 4967 – 3136
Non-college41 – 5868 – 3154
Under 5047 – 5171 – 2649
Under 3053 – 4571 – 2637
Under 30 and white34 – 6354 – 4340
50 and over38 – 6151 – 4826
Seniors42 – 5856 – 4329
$50,000 and over45 – 5462 – 3635
With kids48 – 5174 – 2453
Without kids43 – 5564 – 3442
Union Households54 – 4382 – 1655
Non-Union Households43 – 5567 – 3049

I don't like how the righthand "Marriage Gap" column is double-counted, although that seems to be the standard way that gaps get talked about. People like double-counting because it makes whatever gap you are worked up over seem too huge to grasp mentally --  e.g., the Race Gap in Texas was something like 150 points!

But even if you divide the Marriage Gap figures by two, the way I like, they're still a big deal.

24 comments:

  1. At first sight the results for "women of color - married" seem to be in contradiction with "african american - married".

    I am not sure what's going on there.

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  2. That's because "women of color" (such a stupid term) includes Hispanics and Asians, not just blacks.

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  3. This is really bad news for Republicans: the number of unmarried women as a percent of the voting population is only going to increase in the future. Even worse, the Democrats know this and are going to make sure to pander excessively to single women.

    Roissy & Whiskey have been talking about this for some time, but there has been little discussion by others. The problem the GOP faces is BOTH social (increasing # of single women) and demographic (increasing # of Hispanics & Asians).

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  4. That's a lot of "Lives of Julia".

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  5. Chief Seattle12/31/12, 3:15 AM

    Clearly getting pregnant is no longer a sufficient reason to get married. So easier, cheaper birth control would lead directly to fewer single mothers. If the Republicans figured this out and launched full-bore into support for free birth control of whatever kind, they could actually change one demographic change back in their favor.

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  6. Wonder what the marriage gap is for gays

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  7. International Jew12/31/12, 6:03 AM

    It's interesting that of all the categories presented, Romney did best among a *young* group--white married women under 30. I wonder how that breaks down as to (1) religious girls, (2) trailer park girls, (3) pretty girls, (4) smart girls who understand being "Julia" is not the path to happiness, (5) wives of the group--younger white men--who stand to lose the most from anti-white public policy.

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  8. How come the union households and non-union households both have a marriage gap higher than the national average? Surely one should be above and one below if all households are one type or another.

    The marriage gap is undeniably huge, but it would be good to see this on a white basis - for example is the marriage gap higher when their are children or is this because black women are more likely to remain unmarried throughout their children's childhood and they are 95% likely to vote democrat.

    I would also be interested to see what the marriage gap is with church attendence. I suspect that it will be lower (although still existing) as marriage, particularly among younger people and less affluent people seems to correlate closely to religious belief.

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  9. People always think I'm a jerk when I say it, but screw it, I'm gonna say it:
    Ever sine reading Murray's Coming Apart, I've believed it's vital that our society shame single motherhood/parenthood to the extent that it was inthe 1950s.

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  10. Unmarried women and minorities are electing politicians that are driving this country towards a disaster. Voters that are both minorities and unmarried females are the worst in this respect. The least likely group to ever vote Republican is unmarried black women. Any attempts by the Republicans to pander to this group by giving them subsidized mortgages, supporting education vouchers to send their kids out to suburban schools, trying to appeal to their supposed social conservatism and so on are a waste of time. The Republicans should do a thorough study of the political beliefs of this group and take an exact opposite position on every issue. They would then have a program that would appeal to white middle class married people and would actually turn things around if implemented.

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  11. Women, schmimmen.
    When Wishkey blames women, he wants you to automatically think White women.

    The noteworthy gap is NOT NOT NOT between Single White Women and White men.

    Single White Women went for BO 52%, yes, but Single White Men (the ones that bear the brunt of leftist's machinations) ONLY voted for Romney 51%. That means 49% of Single White Men are leftist!

    Meanwhile:

    A prior post of Steve's showed that, if Men Only had the vote (that is, single White men + White married men + minority men, married or not) the electoral college would have been pulled 4/5of the way towards electing Obama, compared to if only White Men voted.

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpolitics/what-the-2012-election-would-have-looked-like-with


    It's the votes of minority women who took it the rest of the way to BO, because as the graph with this post shows, Married White Women voted for Romney overwhelmingly (62%).

    So, the problem, in truth, does NOT especially lie with Single White Women.

    It's a combination of Single White *People* (52% Single White Women and 49% Single White Men) and Minorities, married or not.

    Marriage, Steve, yanks not only Single White Women rightward, it also does so to Single White MEN!

    The answer is: Encourage marriage.

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  12. Well, the best thing for the Republicans is for Texas to avoid the guestworker programs and make Mexicans in their state more like those in San Antonio than Brownsville,but many Republicans like the guestworker programs that keep Mexicans in their state like those in Brownsville.

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  13. The PC white seems to be dropping in the younger age groups instead of increasing. So if whites can have more kids than hispanics starting 5 years from now and hispanics keep dropping as they becomee Americanized who knows. Its still wishful thinking.

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  14. Corn said...
    "People always think I'm a jerk when I say it, but screw it, I'm gonna say it:
    Ever sine reading Murray's Coming Apart, I've believed it's vital that our society shame single motherhood/parenthood to the extent that it was inthe 1950s."


    That's a good start. But we also need the government to stop subsidizing single mothers.

    Good luck with that.

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  15. What the hell is wrong with single white men? It is true that they (we) bear the brunt of the anti-white and anti-male politics of the left. I don't understand their thinking.

    Looks like the best thing we can do as Republicans is to (1) encourage marriage, especially among young white and Latina women and (2) offer more explicitly pro-male policies. Make our party the party of men and the women who love them.

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  16. I've read that single women are not allowed in Islam. Not a bad idea.

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  17. Are conservatives more likely to marry or does marriage make people more conservative?

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  18. "I've believed it's vital that our society shame single motherhood/parenthood to the extent that it was in the 1950s."

    Shaming unhealthy behavior only works when it is relatively uncommon. A whole lot of these single mothers live in neighborhoods and communities where most of the young mothers don't have husbands. Those other young mothers, and their relatives, won't accept you shaming the entire block.

    Gloria

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  19. Are you guys going to marry these single white women? Even the overweight ones with multiple kids by other men? Just curious...


    Gloria

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  20. Clearly getting pregnant is no longer a sufficient reason to get married.

    Marriage is dead thanks to cultural liberalism affecting the masses. Not so much the elite, who love love it.

    So easier, cheaper birth control would lead directly to fewer single mothers.

    That's like burning the house down and adding more fuel to the fire.

    The whole "contraception reduces single motherhood" only works for affluent/rich SWPL White/Asian women (whom modern feminism benefits the most).

    It does NOT work for Black and Hispanic women. Why?

    Blacks and Hispanics have low future-time orientation, lower IQs, more impulsivity, etc.

    People should not deny class, racial, etc differences here.

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  21. "Are you guys going to marry these single white women? Even the overweight ones with multiple kids by other men? Just curious..."

    The overweight ones with multiple kids are probably getting food stamps and other forms of welfare so they would probably not be willing to give that up to marry any of the men willing to marry them. Absent the welfare state, one of two things would happen. They would marry less desirable men e.g. older men or less attractive younger men, poorer men or men with serious personality flaws. There are equal numbers of men and women so everyone would be able to find someone. Or, second, they would avoid having the multiple children or gaining weight in the first place and get better husbands. You get more of what you subsidize and the government has been subsidizing overweight single moms popping out multiple kids for many years now.


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  22. The Israel first types will be proud that Israel is the first country in decades to take serious steps towards reducing dumb fertility.

    http://www.timesofisrael.com/ethiopian-women-claim-israel-forced-them-to-use-birth-control-before-letting-them-immigrate/

    A light unto nations

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  23. Mark,
    Finances, in the form of cash benefits or food stamps, are only part of the picture. There are two forces working against marriage for this type of woman. First are the benefits, but just as important is the character of the men available to them. You are right about the "serious personality flaws" that afflict most of the men who'd be willing to marry them. Being on the bottom of your society is bad enough, but being on the bottom of society while putting with an abusive or unfaithful husband is even worse.

    Besides, I really don't see welfare benefits disappearing entirely. We aren't going to let American children starve to death. A better plan would be to make welfare benefits contingent on a form of long-term birth control like hormonal implants or and IUD. Both methods are effective without the woman having to remember to take a pill every day.

    Gloria

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  24. BTW, the idea that eligibility for welfare payments changed in the 60s is untrue. If you look at the history of welfare, when it was instituted during the New Deal the language made it available to any mother without a male provider regardless of her marital status. It was controversial because some people thought it would undermine marriage. But for the first 30 years of it's existence there was no rise in out of wedlock births. At that point in time most people thought that only reason a mother would apply for benefits was if she'd lost her provider due to death or disability, not desertion. But what really changed in the 60s was a shift in culture and a change in the character of black Americans. For the worse. And that character corruption has now spread to whites sadly.

    Gloria

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