Does Employment Shift Mothers' Voting Behavior and Political Identity?

Jacob Bastian

No 34980, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: While the correlation between working and voting is positive, I provide the first causal evidence that this relationship is negative. Using five decades of Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) expansions and 1990s welfare reform as instruments for employment, I find that working lowers voter turnout and increases conservatism among lower-income mothers. Voter registration, political knowledge, and civic engagement decline, while preferences for conservative policies rise. Effects are largest for unmarried, younger, and less-educated mothers and are substantially stronger outside metropolitan areas. Notably, political shifts are concentrated among White women despite larger employment gains among non-White women, driven in part by White women entering more conservative coworker environments. Prior exposure to work also matters: women without working mothers experience larger ideological shifts. While recent decades have seen more women voting Democrat, even more women would have voted Democrat if not for decades of pro-work public policy targeting lower-income mothers.

JEL-codes: D72 H24 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-lma and nep-pol
Note: PE
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