Men frequently follow their parents’ political outlooks while their sisters more often reject conservative thinking
Our lives are shaped by the genes, and increasingly the wealth, we inherit from our parents. But there’s also a lot of research showing that parents pass something else on to us – politics. Why did it take the convulsions of Brexit to make older homeowners in the “red wall” – identical to Tory voters elsewhere – vote Conservative? In part because their parents voted Labour.
Now, fascinating new research focusing on Germany and Switzerland adds a great twist to this well-known story: the passing on of ideological political preferences is different between sons and daughters. Sons are equally likely to inherit political preferences from their parents whether leftwing or rightwing. But daughters are much less likely to take on their parents’ rightwing tendencies.
