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Gender and Abortion Attitudes: Religiosity as a Suppressor Variable
Abstract
Despite the interest-group perspective that women should be more likely than men to support legal abortion, much research finds that women and men hold similar views on this issue. This null relationship has puzzled scholars of abortion attitudes. In an attempt to shed light on this relationship, this paper argues that gender differences in religiosity help explain the lack of a gender difference in abortion attitudes, with religiosity acting as a suppressor variable for the theoretically expected relationship between gender and support for legal abortion. Data from the 2012 General Social Survey support the hypothesis that the expected gender difference in support for legal abortion emerges when religiosity is controlled in multivariate analysis. This result indicates that religiosity is indeed suppressing women’s greater support for legal abortion, as anticipated by the interest-group perspective. Final remarks outline directions for future research suggested by the analysis.
... Quiescence-or the absence of collective activism against deprivation and injustice (Gaventa 1982)-lack of group-based consciousness and solidarity, and what appear to be self-defeating political attitudes among structurally disadvantaged groups (Jost et al. 2017) are foundational puzzles across the social sciences. A few studies suggest religion can suppress progressivism on individual issues among women and racial minorities (Wilcox 1992;Sherkat, DeVries, and Creek 2010;Barkan 2014;Adamczyk, Boyd, and Hayes 2016), but religion may operate as a more general suppressor of progressive politics. ...
... And in American religion, belief systems (e.g., biblical literalism) and groups (e.g., fundamentalists) that emphasize an interventionist God demonstrate especially large status differences in adherence and particularly conservative systemjustifying schemas (Hoffmann and Bartkowski 2008). Supporting the possibility that American religion is, on average, an actively sociopolitically conservatizing force, it is primarily issues linked to religion on which disadvantaged groups are sometimes more conservative than their counterparts (Barkan 2014;Adamczyk, Boyd, and Hayes 2016;Schnabel 2018b). ...
... Although religion as a suppressor of progressive values has not been broadly examined, cultural and social psychological approaches highlight the identityand outlook-shaping power of religion (Kay et al. 2010;Edgell 2012;Jost et al. 2014), and a few studies have suggested religion suppresses progressivism on one or two specific issues (Wilcox 1992;Barkan 2014). Although not framed as a test of the "opiate" concept, these studies provide some indication that religion could help account for why we do not always find the group differences in politics we might expect based on the positionality principle. ...
This study considers the assertion that religion is the opiate of the masses. Using a special module of the General Social Survey, I first demonstrate that religion functions as a compensatory resource for structurally disadvantaged groups—women, racial minorities, those with lower incomes, and, to a lesser extent, sexual minorities. I then demonstrate that religion—operating as both compensatory resource and values-shaping schema—suppresses what would otherwise be larger group differences in political ideology. This study provides empirical support for the general “opiate” claim that religion is the “sigh of the oppressed creature” and suppressor of emancipatory political values. I expand and refine the theory, however, showing how religion provides (1) compensatory resources for lack of social, and not just economic, status, and (2) traditional-values-oriented schemas that, rather than just distracting people, shape their politics in accordance with the content of religious belief systems.
... Hertel and Russell (1999) find that men are slightly more in favor of reproductive rights but that this effect flips once models control for participation in the labor force. More recently, Barkan (2014) and Lizotte (2015) argue that the null effect attributed to gender is the result of omitted variable bias and that when religiosity is included as a control, women do in fact favor abortion rights more than men. ...
... That is, instead of predicting a null effect, we expect a significant decrease in the respondents' approval of Pro-Abortion Access attitudes. Similarly, although gender has not often been a good predictor of Pro-Abortion Access attitudes when controlling for other factors, Barkan (2014) shows that when controlling for Religiosity, this correlation is strong. Including Religiosity in our models, we expect women to be more Pro-Abortion Access than men, ceteris paribus, and to become even more supportive of Pro-Abortion Access attitudes when presented with an Anti-Abortion Access frame, all things being equal. ...
... We refer to this as the Gender hypothesis: frame will express greater support for abortion rights. Following prior research (Barkan 2014), we also expect those respondents identifying as conservative Christians to have stronger Anti-Abortion Access attitudes and that these will strengthen in the face of a frame presenting a Pro-Abortion Access slant to the issue. This is the Christian hypothesis: ...
Following recent insight into how citizens respond to attempts to correct political and salient misperceptions (Nyhan and Riefler, 2010, Political Behavior 32 (2): 303–330), we also expect that certain characteristics will predispose citizens to react strongly to messaging on highly contentious issues. Specifically, we expect that respondents will express an opinion that is even stronger in line with their predispositions when exposed to frames that challenge their position. Using an experiment on abortion opinion embedded in the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), we find little indication that Pro-Abortion Access and Anti-Abortion Access frames move opinion on abortion in the aggregate, but there is evidence that specific characteristics correlate with a “backfire” effect identified by Nyhan and Riefler (2010, Political Behavior 32 (2): 303–330). In particular, gender, religiosity, and “Born-Again” Christian affiliation are all predictive of responding to either the Anti-Abortion Access or Pro-Abortion Access frame by moving the opposite direction as intended on the feeling thermometer.
... Although abortion is intrinsically tied to women's bodies, past research has generally found that women are no more likely to support legal abortion than men, despite the fact that restricting abortion access disproportionately affects women [33,34,35]. The absence of gender differences has led some researchers to conclude that gender matters less than religious, educational and racial differences [36]. A substantial body of research has attempted to explain why women fail to support legal abortion at higher rates than men, with many attributing it to women's reticence towards undergoing an abortion themselves, as well as how these attitudes vary based on circumstances that lead women to seek an abortion (for a review, see [36]). ...
... The absence of gender differences has led some researchers to conclude that gender matters less than religious, educational and racial differences [36]. A substantial body of research has attempted to explain why women fail to support legal abortion at higher rates than men, with many attributing it to women's reticence towards undergoing an abortion themselves, as well as how these attitudes vary based on circumstances that lead women to seek an abortion (for a review, see [36]). While others have focused on the Rossi Scale as a measure of abortion support, we use a single item measure of abortion support which identifies the intensity of support rather than variance in support by specific condition, which may not be ordinal or continuous [37]. ...
... Here, we untangled one underlying explanation of women's attitudes toward legal abortion by paying attention to differences in gender linked fate by marital status. We find that women are, on average more supportive of abortion than men, a finding that counters previous research that fails to document a gender gap [33][34][35][36]. We then find that women with weaker perceptions of gender linked fate report lower levels of legal abortion support. ...
Abortion is uniquely connected to women’s experiences yet women’s attitudes towards legal abortion vary across the pro-choice/anti-abortion spectrum. Existing research has focused on sociodemographic characteristics to explain women’s levels of abortion support. Here, we argue that abortion attitudes vary with women’s perceptions of gender linked fate, or the extent to which some women see their fates as tied to other women. Drawing upon existing research showing that married white women report lower levels of gender linked fate than their non-married counterparts, we assess these relationships for abortion attitudes applying the 2012 American National Election Survey (n = 2,173). Using mediation analysis, we show that lower levels of gender linked fate among married white women (vs. non-married white women) explain their stronger opposition to abortion. As many state governments are increasingly legislating restricted access to legal abortion, understanding factors explaining opposition to legal abortion is urgently important.
... Specifically, some research suggests that women are more supportive of abortion, 24 whereas other research suggests there are no gender differences. 25 These inconsistent fi ndings may be due to a failure to account for religious affi liation, 23,26 as well as the possibility that support for abortion depends on the circumstance under which an abortion is sought-oversights which we addressed in the present study. ...
... These results are consistent with past international and New Zealand-based research showing that identifying with a Christian religion, church attendance and religiosity correlate negatively with support for abortion. 14,[22][23][24]26 Turning to other signifi cant correlates of abortion support, we found that education correlated positively with support for both abortion measures. This fi nding is consistent with studies from Northern Ireland, 22 We also found that those living in areas with higher deprivation were less supportive of both forms of abortion. ...
... Research from the US suggests that having more children is unassociated with abortion attitudes when accounting for religious affi liation. 26 However, our results are consistent with early New Zealand-based research which suggested that parity was negatively correlated with abortion support. 14 Notably, relationship status did not correlate with abortion attitudes. ...
Aims:
The present study examined the sociodemographic correlates of support for legalised abortion in New Zealand.
Method:
Data (N=19,973) were from the 2016/17 New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study, a national longitudinal panel sample of New Zealand adults aged 18 and older. The survey measured support for legalised abortion (a) regardless of the reason and (b) when the woman's life is endangered, as well as (c) focal sociodemographic correlates.
Results:
Our sample expressed moderate-to-high support for legalised abortion regardless of the reason and high support for abortion when the woman's life is endangered. Being religious, living in a more deprived neighbourhood and having more children all correlated negatively with support for both measures of abortion. Men were less supportive of abortion for any reason but did not differ from women's support for legalised abortion when the woman's life is endangered. Furthermore, age correlated negatively with support for abortion for any reason, but positively with support for abortion when a woman's life is endangered.
Conclusions:
A majority of our respondents expressed high levels of support for legalised abortion. Several sociodemographic factors were significantly associated with support for legalised abortion.
... Since the passing of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 that legalized abortion, the abortion debate has become the most contentious domestic issue in the US (Barkan, 2014;Fried, 2008). Over the years, numerous aspects in the abortion controversy have galvanized the public who are divided over each particular issue in the debate. ...
... These factors include age, education, income, religiosity, region of residence, and political ideology. Gender was found not to be a significant factor and the lack of a gender difference was attributed to a suppression effect of religiosity in a recent study using GSS data (Barkan, 2014). Despite the stability of public opinions on abortion issues, changing demographics in the US may potentially alter the traditional alignments in the debate (Jelen & Wilcox, 2003;Shaw, 2003;Yigit & Tatch, 2017). ...
... Looking across all six models in Tables 3 and 4 as well as results in model 1 from Table 2, a few noticeable patterns emerge. First, with the exception of Japanese Americans, gender appears to be a nonfactor for most Asians after controlling for religiosity and other factors as demonstrated in Tables 3 and 4. In other words, only among Japanese Americans does a suppression effect exist which is consistent with a recent study that shows that the impact of gender is suppressed by religiosity (Barkan, 2014). That is, the reason why gender may appear not to affect opinions toward legalized abortion is because women are more religious than men and people with a high degree of religiosity and a stronger religious identity are more likely to oppose legal abortion. ...
Over the past four decades, abortion has remained the most controversial domestic issue in the US. Public opinion toward legalizing abortion has been sharply divided yet stable according to several major surveys. This study examines how religion and other important factors affect Asian Americans’ views toward abortion. Data are from the National Asian American Survey 2008 and multivariate analyses are used to examine whether religion exerts a mediation effect and explore attitudinal differences among six major Asian American groups. Results show that Asian Americans resemble the broader society in their opinions toward the abortion issue in that a documented sharp division exists among Asian American respondents. Groups ranked by the level of support for legal abortion are: Japanese, Chinese, Asian Indians, Korean, Filipino/a, and Vietnamese Americans. OLS regression analyses show that religiosity mediates the impact of religious affiliation on opinions toward abortion for Asian Americans who are non-Catholic Christians. Among Asian American who are Catholics, only a partial mediation effect is observed in the analysis. Analysis conducted for each Asian American group shows that different factors exert varying degree of influence in the opinion toward legalized abortion. Thus, an interaction effect of religion and ethnicity is found. Implications concerning ethnic diversity, religion, and opinions toward abortion are discussed in the paper.
... Quiescence-or the absence of collective activism against deprivation and injustice (Gaventa 1982)-lack of group-based consciousness and solidarity, and what appear to be self-defeating political attitudes among structurally disadvantaged groups (Jost et al. 2017) are foundational puzzles across the social sciences. A few studies suggest religion can suppress progressivism on individual issues among women and racial minorities (Wilcox 1992;Sherkat, DeVries, and Creek 2010;Barkan 2014;Adamczyk, Boyd, and Hayes 2016), but religion may operate as a more general suppressor of progressive politics. ...
... And in American religion, belief systems (e.g., biblical literalism) and groups (e.g., fundamentalists) that emphasize an interventionist God demonstrate especially large status differences in adherence and particularly conservative systemjustifying schemas (Hoffmann and Bartkowski 2008). Supporting the possibility that American religion is, on average, an actively sociopolitically conservatizing force, it is primarily issues linked to religion on which disadvantaged groups are sometimes more conservative than their counterparts (Barkan 2014;Adamczyk, Boyd, and Hayes 2016;Schnabel 2018b). ...
... Although religion as a suppressor of progressive values has not been broadly examined, cultural and social psychological approaches highlight the identityand outlook-shaping power of religion (Kay et al. 2010;Edgell 2012;Jost et al. 2014), and a few studies have suggested religion suppresses progressivism on one or two specific issues (Wilcox 1992;Barkan 2014). Although not framed as a test of the "opiate" concept, these studies provide some indication that religion could help account for why we do not always find the group differences in politics we might expect based on the positionality principle. ...
This study considers the assertion that religion is the opiate of the masses. Using a special module of the General Social Survey and drawing on theories of positionality, structuration, and system justification, I first demonstrate that religion functions as a compensatory resource for structurally-disadvantaged groups—women, racial minorities, those with lower incomes, and, to a lesser extent, sexual minorities. I then demonstrate that religion—operating as both palliative resource and values-shaping schema—suppresses what would otherwise be larger group differences in political values. This study provides empirical support for Marx’s general claim that religion is the “sigh of the oppressed creature” and suppressor of emancipatory politics. It expands upon and refines the economics-focused argument, however, showing that religion provides (1) compensatory resources for lack of social, and not just economic, status, and (2) traditional-values-oriented schemas that impact social attitudes more than economic attitudes. I conclude that religion is not a simple distraction, but instead a complex and powerful social structure in which people both receive psychological compensation and develop rules-based belief systems that shape their political values. This framework helps explain both why disadvantaged groups tend to be more religious, and why there are not larger and more consistent group differences in politics.
... Unfortunately, empirical research conducted in Indonesia regarding religiosity and its impact on consumer behavior, is still lacking. Even though there has been international attention to religiosity and its role in changing consumer behavior, many empirical results have focused on the religiosity influence on consumer attitudes and behavior (Abou-Youssef et al., 2015;Ahrold et al., 2011;Alam et al., 2012;Al Jahwari, 2015;Barkan, 2014;Bodford & Hussong, 2013;Graafland, 2015;Lindridge, 2005;McKenzie, 2012;Schouten & Graafland, 2014;Shakona, 2013;Souiden & Rani, 2015;). ...
... (2015) employed a mixed method, but simplified it by deleting intention. Contradictly, Alam et al. (2012) put religiosity and attitude as a predictor of intention, and was supported by the work of Ahrold et al. (2011), Barkan (2014) and Bodford and Hussong (2013); they argued that religiosity has a direct effect on behavior intention. ...
... This study also agrees that one's religious conformance can lead to the intention to match behavior with the value, that is, wearing a hijab. Research that supports this idea can be found in: Ahrold et al. (2011);Alam et al. (2012); Al Jawhari (2015); Barkan (2014); Bodford and Hussong (2013); Lindridge (2005); and Schouten and Graafland (2014).). However, McKenzie (2012) found the effect insignificant. ...
This research aims to investigate the relationship pattern between religiosity, attitude and intention to wear a hijab. This research used purposive sampling from four cities and four regencies in the Banten Province of Indonesia. Data was collected through questionnaires, interviews, observations, and reviews of literature. The Latent Variable Score (LVS) was used to simplify the religiosity construct and structural equation modeling was chosen as the analytical tool. The results showed attitude is not proven to have an influence on the intention to wear a hijab—however, religiosity has quite a significant role in shaping attitude and intention. Fashionable Islamic public figures could be used to provide positive role models toward the wearing of hijabs. The results of this study should be considered for future research into religiosity, attitude and behavioral intention relationship patterns.
... There are studies have indicated that women are more supportive of abortion (Patel & Johns, 2009;Finlay, 1996). And many studies find that women and men hold similar view on this issue (Barkan, 2014 Briefly, there are many variables that affect the attitudes towards abortion, which have been studied in a number of studies in different places. In this study it is investigated the affect of some variables (gender, age, educational level and the existence of a disability in the individual's family) on the attitudes towards abortion in Jordan. ...
... The percentage of who supported abortion deformed fetuses (19%). This result is agree with the result of some studies reviewed, such as (Barkan, 2014;Asman, 2004;Francome & Freeman,2000;Misra, 1998;Rosner, 1968). This result also supports Abu Elaim & Alesa study (2013) which indicated that "Abortion is a crime punishable by Islamic law and the law; and whether that was before the soul is breathed or after, whether abortion with the consent of the pregnant woman with or without her consent; and whether doing or do others; and whether it actually positive or negative, whether it actually physically or morally. ...
... This means that males are more rejection of abortion deformed fetuses, and the females (mean = 51.7) are more supportive for abortion deformed fetuses. This result is agree with the results of these studies (Patel & Johns, 2000;Finlay, 1996), also disagreed with the results of these studies (Barkan, 2014 According to the variable of existence of a disability in the individual's family, this is the first time that a study of the impact of this variable on attitudes toward abortion. The results of present study were that there were no differences between Jordanian people in attitudes toward abortion deformed fetuses due existence of a disability in the individual's family. ...
Abstract:
This study aimed to know the attitudes of Jordanians people toward abortion deformed fetuses, and it aimed to investigate the effect of some variable on these attitudes. In order to achieve the aims of this study, a questionnaire of attitudes toward abortion deformed fetuses were used to collect data from 800 persons (344 males and 456 females).
The results showed that the percentage of Jordanians people who refused abortion deformed fetuses are (43.5%). Also it indicated that there are statistically significant differences between the Jordanians people in the attitudes toward abortion deformed fetuses due to gender, and the differences favored to males. Also there are no statistically significant differences between Jordanians people in the attitudes due to (age, educational level & existence of a disability in the individual's family).
Key words: Abortion, induced abortion, deformed fetus, Jordan.
... There are studies have indicated that women are more supportive of abortion (Patel & Johns, 2009;Finlay, 1996). And many studies find that women and men hold similar view on this issue (Barkan, 2014 Briefly, there are many variables that affect the attitudes towards abortion, which have been studied in a number of studies in different places. In this study it is investigated the affect of some variables (gender, age, educational level and the existence of a disability in the individual's family) on the attitudes towards abortion in Jordan. ...
... The percentage of who supported abortion deformed fetuses (19%). This result is agree with the result of some studies reviewed, such as (Barkan, 2014;Asman, 2004;Francome & Freeman,2000;Misra, 1998;Rosner, 1968). This result also supports Abu Elaim & Alesa study (2013) which indicated that "Abortion is a crime punishable by Islamic law and the law; and whether that was before the soul is breathed or after, whether abortion with the consent of the pregnant woman with or without her consent; and whether doing or do others; and whether it actually positive or negative, whether it actually physically or morally. ...
... This means that males are more rejection of abortion deformed fetuses, and the females (mean = 51.7) are more supportive for abortion deformed fetuses. This result is agree with the results of these studies (Patel & Johns, 2000;Finlay, 1996), also disagreed with the results of these studies (Barkan, 2014 According to the variable of existence of a disability in the individual's family, this is the first time that a study of the impact of this variable on attitudes toward abortion. The results of present study were that there were no differences between Jordanian people in attitudes toward abortion deformed fetuses due existence of a disability in the individual's family. ...
This study aimed to identify Attitudes of Teachers (Female) Towards Teaching Sex Education Topics for Persons with Intellectual Disability in Jordan. And it aimed to investigate the effect of some variables (educational levels, Specialization, Experience, and Age of teachers). In order to achieve aims of this study, a scale of attitudes of teachers towards teaching sex education topics for persons with intellectual disability consisted of (14) items were used to collect the data on (178) teachers (female) from Jordan. The results showed that attitudes of the teachers were favor of teaching sex education topics for persons with intellectual disability.
Also the results indicated that no statistically significant differences at the level of significance (α ≤ 0.05) between teachers in attitudes towards teaching sex education topics for persons with intellectual disability due to educational level and age of teachers, and there were statistically significant differences at the level of significance (α ≤ 0.05) in attitudes towards teaching sex education topics for persons with intellectual disability due to the specialized and these differences favored special educator, and there are statistically significant differences at the level of significance (α ≤ 0.05) due to the experience favored teachers who had more years experience.
Key words: sex education, persons with intellectual disability.
... Second, though women endorse less modern sexism than men (Hayes & Swim, 2013;Swim et al., 1995), women do endorse modern sexist beliefs and these beliefs predict their political opinions (e.g., preferring a man over a woman Senate candidate; Swim et al., 1995). Third, while some research suggests that women tend to hold stronger anti-abortion beliefs than men, this relationship disappears (Adamczyk & Valdimarsdóttir, 2018) or reverses entirely when controlling for a comprehensive set of religious variables, including religious commitment and religious attendance (Barkan, 2014;Lizotte, 2015). This mitigating effect of religion on the gender gap in abortion attitudes has been found in both Black and White individuals (Lizotte & Carey, 2021). ...
... Religious salience was assessed with one item adapted from the 2012 GSS that asked "how strongly you feel about your religious/spiritual identity," rated 0 = Not religious or spiritual to 5 = Very strongly religious or spiritual, with higher scores reflecting higher religiosity. Higher scores on this item were correlated with more opposition to abortion (Barkan, 2014). ...
Attitudes towards abortion play a significant historical and contemporary role in U.S. politics. Research has documented the influence of racist and sexist attitudes in Americans’ political opinions, yet the role of these attitudes has largely been absent in psychological research about abortion. We hypothesized that racism and sexism, originating from historically-rooted stereotypes about Black women’s sexuality and motherhood, would be related to abortion attitudes. In Study 1, we recruited three samples—Black (n = 401), Latinx (n = 316), and White (n = 343) individuals diverse in age, gender, and abortion identity—to complete an online survey assessing abortion attitudes, symbolic racism, modern sexism, and religiosity. Results were consistent with hypotheses: antipathy and resistance to the equality of African Americans (racism) or women (sexism) related to individuals’ negative abortion attitudes, above and beyond religiosity, in all three samples. In Study 2, we partially replicated these findings using data from the 2012 American National Election Studies (ANES). Moreover, we extended Study 1’s findings by demonstrating that racism and/or sexism predicted opposition to abortion while controlling for political ideology among White (n = 2,344) and Black (n = 500) individuals but not Latinx individuals (n = 318). These studies demonstrated that exclusionary ideologies (i.e., racist and sexist attitudes) relate to individuals’ abortion attitudes. These findings may assist researchers and policy makers with interpreting a more comprehensive picture of the racist and sexist attitudes that individuals possibly draw upon when responding to questions about abortion, including voting, answering polls, or supporting political candidates.
... Berger, 1977). For example, a variable like gender can express different kinds of affectedness in the context of explaining support for legal abortion (e. g., Barkan, 2014), along the lines of how age may express different kinds of affectedness in the context of explaining support for public spending for schools (e. g., Ponza, Duncan, Corcoran, & Groskind, 1988). Combining such studies, whose variables do not seem at first sight to have much in common, will enlarge our empirical evidence on the relationship between abstract variables (e. g., affectedness→policy support); that is, it would show more clearly that Barkan (2014) and Ponza et al. (1988) produced related results. ...
... For example, a variable like gender can express different kinds of affectedness in the context of explaining support for legal abortion (e. g., Barkan, 2014), along the lines of how age may express different kinds of affectedness in the context of explaining support for public spending for schools (e. g., Ponza, Duncan, Corcoran, & Groskind, 1988). Combining such studies, whose variables do not seem at first sight to have much in common, will enlarge our empirical evidence on the relationship between abstract variables (e. g., affectedness→policy support); that is, it would show more clearly that Barkan (2014) and Ponza et al. (1988) produced related results. ...
Individual studies in the empirical social sciences have limited explanatory power, as they focus on particular aspects of the overarching objects of research. To explain complex communicative phenomena or describe multistep processes, individual findings need to be combined. Often, however, such an integration does not occur, and opportunities to expand the explanatory power of existing results beyond their immediate scope remain unexploited. Drawing from examples in practical research, this paper describes six metatheoretical, methodological, and context factors that explain why a higher degree of co-creation and integration remains unrealized. A good understanding of these factors can easily be translated into measures that can achieve more integration and make our results more impactful. Furthermore, the illustration of the six factors indicates where integrable findings can be found in this fragmented research landscape. The resulting recommendations are made in the hope that integrative work will be upgraded and further established as a methodological niche in the generation of insights.
... Religiosity is a level of belief in God, accompany by believing and practicing a set of principles (McDaniel and Burnett, 1990). Various studies such as Ali et al. (2018), Elseidi (2018), Al Jahwari (2015) and Barkan (2014), find that religiosity significantly affects the behavior of Muslim consumers. It means different levels of religiosity lead to different behaviors. ...
... Mukhtar and Butt (2012) show that religiosity significantly affects choosing halal products. Some other studies such as Barkan (2014), conclude that one's religion could lead to the intention to match behavior with the value. Several studies find significant effects of religiosity on purchase intentions (Tabassi et al., 2012); intentions to use new products among Muslim consumers (Rehman and Shabbir, 2010); intentions of American Muslim tourists to choose the appropriate sharia (Shakona, 2013) and intentions of purchase kosher products (Mukhtar and Butt, 2012). ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to: build Muslim consumer decision-making style (MCDMS); analyze the influence of the consumer decision-making style on Muslim behavior to buy halal certified food; analyze the impact of religiosity on Muslim behavior in buying halal-certified food and study the role of religiosity in the relationship between MCDMS and Muslim behavior in buying halal certified food.
Design/methodology/approach
This study’s target population is the Muslim Indonesian population age at least 18 years old. The self-administered survey method is carried out based on convenience and snowball sampling techniques and the questionnaire is distributed online. This study collects data from 396 Muslim respondents in Indonesia through an online survey. Factor analysis and regression with interaction variables are applied to test the research hypothesis statistically.
Findings
This study reveals several results: MCDMS produces 10 dimensions; halal consciousness is an important dimension; the perfectionist/high-quality conscious and price-conscious, has a significant negative effect on the intention to buy halal-certified food; the halal consciousness and the recreational/hedonic conscious have a significant positive effect on the intention to buy halal certified food; religiosity has a significant positive impact directly on the intention to purchase halal-certified food; Religiosity positively moderates the impact of a perfectionist/high-quality conscious and price-conscious on the intention to buy halal-certified food.
Originality/value
This paper will build an MCDMS by adding the dimensions of halal consciousness. The author has not found literature about MCDMS. This research will also study the impact of MCDMS and religiosity on the intention to buy halal-certified food, as well as will study the role of religiosity in relationships between Muslim decision-making styles and intention to buy halal-certified food. Similar research is still very limited in marketing literature.
... Accompanying these changes in public opinion and legislative rights for gay couples, there is also a growing body of research examining the social correlates of attitudes towards same-sex marriage, albeit more so in the United States than in Europe and elsewhere. As in studies on attitudes towards abortion (Barkan 2014;Clements 2015;Froese and Bader 2010;Wilcox 2003, 2005;Lizotte 2015), such research finds that religious factors, such as affiliation, regular church attendance and beliefs in and about God, are among the most frequent predictors of opposition to gay marriage (Clements and Field 2014;Hayes and Dowds 2015;Olson, Cadge, and Harrison 2006;Whitehead 2010). Religious communities have also been divided internally in their response to changing public views. ...
... Previous studies in the United States, Britain, Northern Ireland and elsewhere in Europe show that women, the unmarried, the young and the socioeconomically privileged, are notably more tolerant in their views towards gay marriage and reproductive rights compared with men, married people, older individuals and the lesser-privileged. The influence of religious identity is dependent on the particular moral attribute that is to be investigated (Barkan 2014;Clements 2014;Froese and Bader 2010;Hayes and Dowds 2015;Wilcox 2003, 2005;Lizotte 2015;Olson, Cadge, and Harrison 2006). For example, previous research in Northern Ireland and elsewhere suggests that while Catholics are more supportive of gay marriage than Protestants, they tend to be less supportive of abortion rights, particularly when comparisons to non-evangelical or mainline Protestants are considered (Clements 2014;Fahey, Hayes, and Sinnott 2006;Hayes and McAllister 1995;Hayes and Nagle 2016;Hoffmann and Johnson 2005;Jelen and Wilcox 2003). ...
Same-sex marriage has become a divisive issue in established western democracies. As in earlier research on abortion, there is now a growing body of studies which suggests that religious factors, such as identity, belief and practice, are the most frequent predictors of opposition towards gay marriage. Yet, what we know about the combined influence of these religious factors remains unexamined. Mindful of this omission, this study examines the relationship between regular church attendance and a belief in God on attitudes towards same-sex marriage and abortion rights. Using the recent survey data from Northern Ireland, the results suggest that not only are those who belong but do not believe distinctive in terms of their demographic makeup, but they are also significantly more likely to adopt a liberal stance in relation to both these issues – gay marriage and abortion rights – than the most religiously devout, or those who both belong and believe.
... While researchers have hypothesized that women are more likely to support legal abortion than men, many studies have failed to find that gender is a significant predictor of abortion attitudes (Altshuler, Gerns Storey, & Prager, 2015;Lizotte, 2015;Wall et al., 1999). However, as women report being more religious than men, and a number of studies have shown that religiosity is associated with disapproval of abortion (Adamczyk, 2013;Fisher, 2011;Jelen & Wilcox, 2003, religiosity has been hypothesized to be a suppressor variable obscuring the expected impact of gender on abortion attitudes (Barkan, 2014). Indeed, studies that examine gender while controlling for religiosity have found a small but consistent gender gap in abortion attitudes, e.g., at any given level of religiosity, support for legal abortion is higher among women than among men (Barkan, 2014;Lizotte, 2015). ...
... However, as women report being more religious than men, and a number of studies have shown that religiosity is associated with disapproval of abortion (Adamczyk, 2013;Fisher, 2011;Jelen & Wilcox, 2003, religiosity has been hypothesized to be a suppressor variable obscuring the expected impact of gender on abortion attitudes (Barkan, 2014). Indeed, studies that examine gender while controlling for religiosity have found a small but consistent gender gap in abortion attitudes, e.g., at any given level of religiosity, support for legal abortion is higher among women than among men (Barkan, 2014;Lizotte, 2015). ...
The US public attitudes toward abortion have been studied extensively, but little is known about these attitudes among women who seek abortion. This mixed-methods study explores women’s attitudes about abortion after receiving or being denied an abortion. Data are from the Turnaway Study, a prospective, longitudinal study of women seeking abortions at 30 US facilities. Participants presented just before a facility’s gestational limit and received abortions or just beyond the limit and were denied abortions. Using mixed effects logistic regression, we assessed 812 participants’ attitudes about abortion over 5 years. At 5 years after abortion seeking, we conducted in-depth interviews with 31 participants; this analysis includes the comments of 19 participants who discussed their abortion attitudes in those interviews. We find that 6 months after abortion seeking, nearly all women supported abortion legality in all (80%) or some (18%) situations, yet 20% also believed abortion is morally wrong. Women denied an abortion were significantly less likely to support the legal right to abortion at 6 months (62%) and 4.5 years (77%) after abortion seeking than women who had received a near-limit abortion (78 and 88%, respectively). In open-ended interviews, women expressed nuanced views, including reporting increased empathy for others facing an unwanted pregnancy. Women’s own reproductive experiences impact their views on abortion. Distinguishing between morality and legality of abortion is critical in understanding abortion attitudes.
... Over the last 30 years attitudes about abortion have remained relatively stagnant, even as Americans' views on other issues, like marijuana use and same-sex relationships, have become much more liberal. One of the key factors that researchers have found to shape attitudes is personal religiosity (Barkan, 2014(Barkan, , 2014Evans, 2002;Pacheco and Kreitzer, 2016). Consistent with previous work, our study found that religious attendance and commitment to religion are both associated with more disapproving views. ...
... Over the last 30 years attitudes about abortion have remained relatively stagnant, even as Americans' views on other issues, like marijuana use and same-sex relationships, have become much more liberal. One of the key factors that researchers have found to shape attitudes is personal religiosity (Barkan, 2014(Barkan, , 2014Evans, 2002;Pacheco and Kreitzer, 2016). Consistent with previous work, our study found that religious attendance and commitment to religion are both associated with more disapproving views. ...
Although abortion became legal over 40 years ago, Americans remain staunchly divided over its acceptability. Personal religious beliefs and behaviors have emerged as some of the most important factors shaping disapproval. Despite religion's importance, very little attention has been given to how the local religious context may shape views and abortion access. Using data from the General Social Survey (N = 6922) that has geographical identifiers, we examine the role of the local religious context for shaping attitudes and the presence of a county abortion clinic. We find that as the level of county religious engagement rises, religious and secular residents alike develop more conservative attitudes. Conversely, as the county Catholic rate increases, moderate and liberal Protestants become more prochoice. While the county conservative Protestant rate has no influence on residents' attitudes, it is the only religious contextual measure that shapes the likelihood that a county has an abortion clinic.
... Lesbian and bisexual women's gender attitudes are the most liberal of the four sexual orientation-gender subgroups in awareness and criticism of sexist discrimination in the United States. In addition, lesbian and bisexual women are more likely to favor legal abortion access than heterosexual women and men (whose abortion attitudes are only distinguishable from one another upon controlling for religious attendance; also see Barkan, 2014;Jelen & Wilcox, 2003). ...
... In addition, lesbian and bisexual women more strongly favored legal access to abortion services than did heterosexual women. This finding stands in contrast to the negligible gender gap in heterosexuals' views on abortion found in prior studies (Barkan, 2014;Jelen & Wilcox, 2003)-the only attitudinal domain wherein heterosexual women's attitudes are not more liberal than heterosexual men's. It is perhaps the case that stark differences between women's and men's gender attitudes found in prior studies overstates or even ignores gender differences in LGB people's beliefs about gender. ...
Extensive research on differences in women's and men's gender attitudes and more recent work on sexual orientation differences in social attitudes have overlooked the potential intersection between gender and sexual orientation in predicting Americans' gender attitudes. I use data from the 2012 American National Election Survey 2012 to investigate differences in views on gender roles, gender discrimination and inequality, and abortion among lesbian and bisexual women, gay and bisexual men, heterosexual women, and heterosexual men. The results suggest that heterosexual men hold the most conservative views on gender, while lesbian and bisexual women are most conscious of gender discrimination and inequality. These differences are partially explained by LGB Americans' liberal political ideology and heightened awareness of homophobic discrimination - two mechanisms that are also gendered. I conclude by arguing that the intersection between sexual orientation and gender produces unique lived experiences that, in turn, produce gendered sexual orientation gaps in worldviews.
... More recently, Adamczyk and Valdimarsdottir (2018) discovered that higher levels of religious engagement in US counties tended to make the residents, religious and secular alike, develop more conservative attitudes toward abortion although a disproportionate rise of the Catholic rate made Protestant residents become more pro-choice. Over time, however, religion has been shown to remain a consistent factor in an individual's abortion attitudes (Barkan, 2014). ...
Over the past decades, abortion has been among the most controversial topics discussed in American politics. Despite the long-running debates, existing studies have focused heavily on individual demographic characteristics affecting people's attitudes toward abortion; thus, there is still much to understand about ideational and contextual factors. Therefore, this study utilized the 2018 General Social Survey to examine how American individuals' attitudes toward abortion are statistically associated with their sexism, whether their mothers were employed in paid work, and their (perceived) strictness of state policies on abortion, together with their demographic characteristics. The results of multivariate regression analysis indicated that individuals' sexism was negatively associated with the idea that abortion should be allowed for any reason, whereas people whose mothers had paid jobs tended to support the idea of abortion. However, the strictness of state policies on abortion was not a significant factor in terms of abortion attitudes across all regression models. Among demographic characteristics, level of education, liberal political ideology, and household income were positively associated with abortion support, whereas the level of religiousness and the number of children showed the opposite effects. Individuals' age, sex, race, and marital status did not show statistically significant relationships with abortion attitudes in this study.
... Within the domain of reproductive rights, one of the most gender-salient policy areas, the connection between gender attitudes, sexism, and support for access to abortion and birth control is inconsistent (Jelen and Wilcox, 2003;Patel and Johns, 2009;Barkan, 2014). Some scholars find a positive correlation between opposition to abortion and both forms of ambivalent sexism, hostile and benevolent (Hodson and MacInnis, 2017), while others find only evidence for a correlation between abortion attitudes and benevolent sexism (Huang et al., 2016) or hostile sexism (Petterson and Sutton, 2018). ...
Advances in gender equality and progressive policies are often stymied by cultural sexist systems and individual-level sexist attitudes. These attitudes are pervasive but vary in type—from benevolent to hostile and implicit to explicit. Understanding the types of sexism and their foundations are important for identifying connections to specific social and political attitudes and behaviors. The current study examines the impact of various manifestations of sexism on attitudes regarding policies and public opinion issues that involve gender equality or have gendered implications. More specifically, we look at attitudes on reproductive rights, support for the #MeToo Movement, equal pay, and paid leave policies. In Study 1 we use data from a high-quality web panel (n = 1,400) to look at the relationship between hostile, benevolent, and implicit sexism, and reproductive rights attitudes, as well as support for the #MeToo Movement. In Study 2 we use data from the American National Election Study (n = 4,270) to examine the relationship between hostile and modern sexism and attitudes on abortion, equal pay, and paid family leave. Overall, these results reveal a complicated relationship between different conceptualizations of sexism and gendered attitudes, underscoring the need to consider how different forms of sexism shape broader social and political views, from both a normative perspective for societal change and a measurement approach for research precision.
... Although religiosity has been associated with both conservatism (Malka et al., 2012) and moral condemnation of abortion (Barkan, 2014), the psychological mechanism that makes religious people condemn abortion is not clear. We hypothesized, that this relationship could be explained by identity fusion-a deep and visceral feeling of oneness with a group (Swann et al., 2012). ...
Why are anti-abortion attitudes more prevalent among conservatives? Here we show that Polish Catholics who prioritize courage, deference to authority, and caring for kin over other moral qualities are more likely to oppose abortion and that these associations are mediated by conservatism. Our findings suggest that conservative opposition to abortion may be rooted in the concern that it is a cowardly way out of the predicament of unwanted pregnancy, that it challenges gender asymmetries, and that it goes against traditional family values. Surprisingly, we found that group loyalty, which is usually associated with conservatism, actually predicts pro-abortion attitudes among Poles, perhaps due to the fact that women's rights supporters have come to form an embattled coalition over the abortion issue. In two studies, we explored the mediating role of conservatism, teasing apart the effects of social dominance orientation and fusion with conservative religious ideology. These findings suggest that attitudes towards abortion are shaped by moral concerns and that they can potentially be recruited by political ideologies in ways that are shaped by particular social and historical contexts. Understanding these relationships between morality, ideology, and environment is crucial to managing the effects of polarization over potentially divisive social issues.
... In addition to items measuring abortion opinion, we use a standard set of demographic and ideological controls as potential correlates with abortion public opinion (83) and prosocial behavior (84). These include sex (1 = female, 0 = male), age, race (white, black, Hispanic or Latino/a, all other), marital status (married, widowed, divorced, separated, never married), employment status (full-time, part-time, unemployed, retired, keeping house, in school, or other), religion (Conservative Protestant, Mainline Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, other, no religion), religious attendance (1 = weekly attendance, 0 = less than weekly attendance), education (no high school diploma, high school graduate, some college, BA or higher), family income (1 = earning $90,000 or more, 0 = earning less than $90,000), region (Northeast, Midwest, South, and West), U.S. residency at age 16 (1 = U.S. resident at age 16, 0 = not a U.S. resident at age 16), and ideology (self-reported views on a seven-point scale from "extremely liberal" to "extremely conservative"). ...
What happens when a request for help from friends or family members invokes conflicting values? In answering this question, we integrate and extend two literatures: support provision within social networks and moral decision-making. We examine the willingness of Americans who deem abortion immoral to help a close friend or family member seeking one. Using data from the General Social Survey and 74 in-depth interviews from the National Abortion Attitudes Study, we find that a substantial minority of Americans morally opposed to abortion would enact what we call discordant benevolence: providing help when doing so conflicts with personal values. People negotiate discordant benevolence by discriminating among types of help and by exercising commiseration, exemption, or discretion. This endeavor reveals both how personal values affect social support processes and how the nature of interaction shapes outcomes of moral decision-making.
... It would be both naïve and indeed incorrect to suggest that only women champion such issues in Ireland: a number of male doctors had long made the case for sex education in Ireland supported by some Ministers for Health (Desmond, 2000;Freedman, 1984;Thornton et al., 1979). The international literature appears to suggest that gender differences in attitudes to various sexual and reproductive health and rights are not particularly marked and, if anything, women can demonstrate more conservative attitudes to abortion, for example (Barkan, 2014;Shapiro & Mahajan, 1986). However, AIDS, more than appears to have been the case for crisis pregnancy or the death of Ann Lovett, opened a "window of opportunity" for women in Ireland to progress sexual health and sexual rights along liberal lines. ...
Many barriers to entry, progression, and leadership for women within the realm of global health remain. But theorising about women’s leadership has always been greater than the counting of bodies within positions of power or balancing out men’s and women’s involvement. In this chapter we suggest a model of gender transformative leadership that could address power imbalances in global health and reiterate a call to act on inequity through feminist leadership in global health.KeywordsGenderEquityLeadershipFeminismHealthPowerTransformation
... One major stream of research on the issue of abortion focuses on gender differences in attitudes toward abortion. In general, research shows that women develop more positive attitudes toward legal abortion than men (Barkan 2014, Finlay 1996, Wang and Buffalo 2004. Although women are more likely than men to support legal abortion, some studies show that over time, men also developed more positive attitudes toward abortion (Patel and Johns 2009). ...
The present study examines the association between sexual morality, religion, and attitudes toward the practice of abortion in Turkey. Drawing upon data from the 2008–2010 European Value Survey in the case of Turkey, several hypotheses were tested concerning the role of liberal sexual relations and many aspects of religion on abortion attitudes. Findings reveal that support of liberal sexual relations demonstrates the strongest justification for abortion. As a religious determinant, prayer practice indicates the most robust opposition to the practice of abortion. Additional religious factors, personal religious identity, and personal faith were also found to be significantly associated with antiabortion attitudes. The findings are discussed and have implications for future research on attitudes toward abortion.
... This is unsurprising as women are the group most affected. Abortion is generally considered to be an issue for women, and the struggle for its legalisation has been fought mainly by women's organisations [13]. For people who do not see an embryo as a person, the topic of abortion is often reduced to the struggle for women's rights [14]. ...
Objective
In October 2020, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal (CT) ruled that in cases where there are indications of irreversible impairments of a foetus or incurable life-threatening diseases, abortions violate the Polish Constitution. Despite the fact that it was issued during the second wave of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Poland, this judgement caused numerous protests. The current study sought to ascertain Poles’ opinions regarding the CT’s judgement, and the ensuing threat to public health presented by the protests against it.
Material and methods
An online survey was conducted on a quota sample of adult Poles (N = 1072). The sample reflected the population structure of Poland.
Results
Only 15.5% of the people surveyed agreed that the CT’s judgement was correct. Logistic regression analysis showed that support for the CT’s ruling could be predicted by male gender, more frequent participation in religious practices, and the presence of a greater number of children in household. The majority of people (65.1%) considered protests to be necessary despite the ongoing pandemic. Cluster analysis distinguished between two groups of people, which were labelled “moderate liberals” (43.9%) and “moderate conservatives” (56.1%). There were no extreme groups - neither one that supported the CT’s judgement and condemned the protesters, nor one that supported protesters unconditionally and disagreed with the judgement.
Conclusions
Undoubtedly, there is no consensus among Poles on the issue of abortion, but the CT’s judgement, resulted in a high level of agreement between people with different views.
... Mukhtar and Butt (2012) show that religiosity significantly affects intention in choosing halal products. Some other studies, such as Nature et al. (2012); Al Jawhari (2015); Barkan (2014), conclude that one's religion could lead to the intention to match behavior with the value. Several studies find significant effects of religiosity on purchase intentions (Sadra & Tabassi, 2012), intentions to use new products among Muslim consumers (Rehman & Shabbir, 2010), intentions of American Muslim tourists to choose the appropriate sharia (Shakona, 2013), and intentions of purchase kosher products (Mukhtar & Butt, 2012). ...
Purpose: The purpose of this research is to study the role of life satisfaction, quality consciousness, and religiosity, which are integrated with the TRA Model to explain the switching intention of Muslim consumers to use Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care (HCPC). The second purpose is to investigate the relationship between variables used in this study to provide recommendations to HCPC producers about Muslim consumer behavior in the market. Research design, data, and methodology: The target population in this study is Muslims who live in Greater Jakarta. Data collection is carried out by the self-administered survey method based on the Purposive sampling technique, and the questionnaire is distributed online. The statistical analysis to test the research hypotheses is the Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM). Results: Life satisfaction, product quality consciousness, and religious commitment have a significant effect on attitude to switching but do not significantly influence the intention of switching to use HCPC. Conclusions: Life satisfaction, quality consciousness, and religiosity that represent individual factors indirectly affect the intention to switch to use HCPC. Thus, religious commitment influences attitude to switching both directly and indirectly.
... In all models, we controlled for age, gender, education, and political ideology, all of which have been associated with attitudes toward legal abortion (cf. Barkan, 2014) and which may also account for the stability of such attitudes. ...
Some political attitudes and opinions shift and fluctuate over time whereas others remain fairly stable. Prior research on attitude strength has documented several features of attitudes that predict their temporal stability. The present analysis focuses on two of them: attitudinal ambivalence and certainty. Each of these variables has received mixed support for its relationship with attitude stability. A recent set of studies, however, has addressed this link by showing that ambivalence and certainty interact to predict stability. Because those studies relied exclusively on college student samples and considered issues that may have been especially likely to evince change over time, the present analysis aimed to replicate the original findings in a sample of registered Florida voters with an important politically relevant issue: abortion. Results of these analyses replicated the previous findings and support the generalizability of the ambivalence × certainty interaction on attitude stability to a sample of registered voters reporting their attitudes toward abortion. Implications for public opinion and the psychology of political attitudes are discussed.
... The GSS datasets each included seven dichotomous questions regarding abortion in different circumstances ("Please tell me whether or not you think it should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legal abortion ..."): defect of the baby, not wanting more children, woman's health is endangered, being poor, child product of rape, being single and abortion for any reason at all. This measure has been used profusely in previous research on abortion attitudes (Adamczyk & Valdimarsdóttir, 2017;Barkan, 2014). ...
Abortion as a problem can be construed from different perspectives. Psychological research on abortion attitudes has focused on testing hypotheses consistent with liberal narratives, according to which opposing abortion is explained by religiosity and lack of support for gender egalitarian views. We propose to analyze the issue from an ideologically diverse perspective, introducing hypotheses consistent with the conservative narratives about abortion, according to which opposition to abortion is explained by respect for human life and moral concerns about sexuality. Using data from multiple samples, including nationally representative surveys over 20 years, we found that variables identified by both the liberal (e.g., religiosity and ambivalent sexism) and conservative (e.g., respect for life and sexual morality) narratives significantly predicted abortion attitudes. Overall, predictors associated with conservative narratives show the strongest association with abortion attitudes. We discuss the value of generating hypotheses from ideologically opposing views to increase our understanding of psychological phenomena.
... Religiosity was measured as the frequency of attendance at religious meetings and services, excluding special occasions such as funerals or baptisms. This operationalization of religiosity, while certainly not comprehensive, has been validated and used in previous studies of religiosity and social attitudes (Barkan 2014). Other components of religiosity including Biblical literalism and prayer frequency were not available on the SASAS. ...
Abortion is legal in South Africa, but negative abortion attitudes remain common and are poorly understood. We used nationally representative South African Social Attitudes Survey data to analyze abortion attitudes in the case of fetal anomaly and in the case of poverty from 2007 to 2016 (n = 20,711; ages = 16+). We measured correlations between abortion attitudes and these important predictors: religiosity, attitudes about premarital sex, attitudes about preferential hiring and promotion of women, and attitudes toward family gender roles. Abortion acceptability for poverty increased over time (b = 0.05, p < .001), but not for fetal anomaly (b = −0.008, p = .284). Highly religious South Africans reported lower abortion acceptability in both cases (Odds Ratio (OR)anomaly = 0.85, p = .015; ORpoverty = 0.84, p = .02). Premarital sex acceptability strongly and positively predicted abortion acceptability (ORanomaly = 2.63, p < .001; ORpoverty = 2.46, p < .001). Attitudes about preferential hiring and promotion of women were not associated with abortion attitudes, but favorable attitudes about working mothers were positively associated with abortion acceptability for fetal anomaly ((ORanomaly = 1.09, p = .01; ORpoverty = 1.02, p = .641)). Results suggest negative abortion attitudes remain common in South Africa and are closely tied to religiosity, traditional ideologies about sexuality, and gender role expectations about motherhood.
... followed by religious attendance (19.4%). Three studies (Barkan, 2014;Brint and Abrutyn, 2010;Smith, 2016) examined religiosity using combined categories of different religion-related variables such as frequency of prayer, service attendance, importance of religion, etc. Other religion-related variables included belief in Biblical literalism (Swank and Fahs, 2016;Wiecko and Gau, 2008), the importance of religion (Wilcox and Riches, 2002), Jesus's teaching (Ross, Lelkes & Russell, 2011), and closeness to God (Unnever, Bartkowski and Cullen, 2010). ...
Although abortion became legal four decades ago, Americans remain staunchly divided over its acceptability. While researchers have been interested in the factors shaping abortion attitudes, there are almost no reviews of this work. We examine the factors shaping Americans’ abortion attitudes and assess the state of published peer‐reviewed articles in this area over the last 15 years. Using a mixed‐methods systematic review, we analyze and critique the findings from 116 journal articles that have examined attitudes about abortion between 2001 and 2016. Among the many predictors and outcomes examined, we show that religion is by far the most utilized statistically significant independent variable, followed by education and income/employment. In addition to examining the factors that shape attitudes, we provide insight into the characteristics of this published work. We offer several suggestions for improving research on this important topic, including a better utilization of social science theory, examining the attitudes of teens, increasing the use of mixed‐methods studies, and drawing on longitudinal data and analyses that consider the influence of the larger context for shaping attitudes.
... and does not want to marry the man) have been classified as "soft" reasons that are generally opposed by the majority of respondents (Granberg & Granberg, 1980;Rossi & Sitaraman, 1988). Research supports the use of the GSS items as both a single scale (Barkan, 2014;Jelen, Damore, & Lamatsch, 2002) and two scales (i.e., "soft" and "hard" reasons; Arney & Trescher, 1976;Barnartt & Harris, 1982;Muthén, 1981). The GSS items have been found psychometrically reliable, across time and subgroups: "With reliabilities mostly above 0.80, these hot-button issues [including abortion] represent rather "mature" attitudes that were reliably reported" (Hout & Hastings, 2016, p. 991). ...
We investigated the content of survey items to assess whether and how racist and sexist stereotypes are woven into the fabric of research on attitudes about abortion in the United States. We collected and analyzed a comprehensive set of survey items (456 items from 80 studies) used in peer-reviewed research published from 2008 to 2018 in representative and non-representative studies of U.S. respondents. Our analysis was guided by historical narratives that have been influential in shaping representations of women and reproduction in the United States (e.g., the Moynihan Report). With this background, we developed three themes pertaining to how individuals' attitudes about abortion are measured: we found that items rely on (1) moral, (2) sexual, and (3) financial evaluations of women seeking abortion care. These themes highlighted implicit and explicit judgments of women, including representations of them as unwilling to partner with men and as fiscally and sexually irresponsible. We argue that survey items meant to objectively assess abortion attitudes draw on negative racial and gender stereotypes and that these stereotypes then travel widely under the veneer of scientific objectivity. Critical methods, such as the item bank analysis described in this study, are crucial to discern how inequality, prejudice, and discrimination can be reproduced in the fabric of research methods. In our discussion, we offer suggestions for researchers to reduce these and related forms of bias in survey-based abortion research.
... Previous studies in the U.S., South Africa, and around the world have focused on circumstances of pregnancy, attitudes and norms of sexuality, and religion as major predictors of abortion attitudes (Barkan, 2014;Elias, Fullerton, & Simpson, 2015;Jelen & Wilcox, 2003;Patel & Myeni, 2008;Strickler & Danigelis, 2002;Varga, 2002). Researchers have also demonstrated that gender role attitudes are consistent (albeit weak) predictors of abortion attitudes globally (Carter, Carter, & Dodge, 2009;Jelen, 2015;Strickler & Danigelis, 2002), but small-scale surveys with undergraduate students suggest gender role attitudes might be insignificant in the South African context (Patel & Johns, 2009). ...
Public abortion attitudes are important predictors of abortion stigma and accessibility, even in legal settings like the U.S. and South Africa. With data from the U.S. General Social Survey and South African Social Attitudes Survey, we used ordinal logistic regressions to measure whether abortion acceptability (in cases of poverty and fetal anomaly) is related to attitudes about social welfare programs and gender roles, then assessed differences by race/ethnicity and education. Social welfare program attitudes did not correlate with abortion acceptability in the U.S., but in South Africa, greater support for income equalization (OR: 0.59, 95% CI: 0.41–0.85) and increased government spending on the poor (OR: 0.66, 95% CI: 0.49–0.91) correlated with lower abortion acceptability in circumstances of poverty. This was significant for Black African and higher educated South Africans. In the U.S., egalitarian gender role attitudes correlated with higher acceptability of abortion in circumstances of poverty (OR: 1.18, 95% CI: 1.03–1.36) and fetal anomaly (OR: 1.15, 95% CI: 1.01–1.31). This was significant for White and less educated Americans. In South Africa, egalitarian gender role attitudes correlated with higher abortion acceptability for fetal anomaly (OR: 1.12, 95% CI: 1.01–1.25) overall and among Black and less educated respondents, but among non-Black South Africans they correlated with higher abortion acceptability in circumstances of poverty. These results suggest abortion attitudes are distinctly related to socioeconomic and gender ideology depending one’s national context, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Reducing abortion stigma will require community-based approaches rooted in intersectional reproductive justice frameworks.
... It is possible that participant gender is relevant to abortion attitudes but that other variables may be suppressing the effects. For example, Barkin (2014) found that religiosity was one such suppressor variable, in that, when religiosity was controlled, gender emerged as a predictor of abortion attitudes. Lizotte (2015) obtained similar findings: Women exhibited more positive attitudes when the model controlled for religiosity. ...
B. J. Rye & Angela Underhill (2019) Contraceptive Context, Conservatism, Sexual Liberalism, and Gender-Role Attitudes as Predictors of Abortion Attitudes, Women's Reproductive Health, 6:1, 34-51
Abstract:
Abortion attitudes are influenced by various factors including the context surrounding an abortion and perceivers’ characteristics. This study’s purpose was to determine if past contraceptive use that led to an unexpected pregnancy was a contextual variable that had an impact on abortion attitudes. We investigated conservatism, sexual liberalism, and gender-role attitudes as predictors of abortion attitudes. Support for abortion was neutral-to-slightly favorable, and no gender differences in abortion attitudes were found. There were no differences in abortion attitudes as a function of contraceptive context. Religiosity and erotophobia-erotophilia together were found to be strong, consistent predictors of abortion attitudes.
... Each of these approaches builds on the concepts of biased processing (Cohen, 2003) and identity bolstering (Kahan, 2013) to evaluate the influence of a particular social attribute on beliefs or knowledge about a particular topic. However, individuals' connections to social groups may frequently be in conflict within the context of any given contested issue (Barkan, 2014;Roccas & Brewer, 2002). This can be explicit, as in the case of a Catholic Democrat seeking guidance related to reproductive rights. ...
This article explores attitudes toward the Illinois pension system and analyzes the impact of demographic and geographic characteristics on information intake and beliefs regarding pension management and funding. Using data from a statewide telephone poll of 1,000 registered voters, as well as other sources, it evaluates some of the complex social factors that influence views on this issue. The results show that Chicagoans regard the severity of the problems facing the Chicago and Illinois pension systems as more substantial than other Illinois residents do, while gender, political and labor identities also correlate with particular views.
... Estas inconsistencias pueden explicarse por diferencias en las características de las muestras estudiadas, o en la metodología utilizada, tanto para recabar información, como para analizar los resultados. Estudios recientes han concluido que la influencia del sexo en las actitudes hacia el aborto está permeada por la relación con otras variables como la religiosidad 21,22 . ...
Resumen: El objetivo de este estudio fue explorar las actitudes hacia el aborto inducido en jóvenes mexicanos, y su relación con el hecho de considerar o no al aborto inseguro un problema de salud pública. Los resultados se compararon de acuerdo al sexo, edad, religión y disciplina de los participantes. La muestra estuvo integrada por 411 estudiantes universitarios, quienes contestaron el cuestionario sobre actitudes hacia el aborto y un cuestionario sobre aborto inseguro. Los participantes mostraron actitudes más favorables que condenatorias hacia el aborto inducido. En general, reconocieron que el aborto inseguro constituye un riesgo para la salud, pero no están seguros que su legislación ayude a resolver esta situación. Los hombres y los participantes religiosos (católicos u otra religión derivada del cristianismo) tuvieron actitudes más condenatorias hacia el aborto inducido que sus pares, y fueron los que menos consideran que legalizar el aborto pueda disminuir los problemas de salud que ocasiona el aborto inseguro. No hubo diferencias relacionadas con la edad de los participantes, ni con su disciplina. Un hallazgo preocupante fue el poco interés de los jóvenes en el tema de la legalización del aborto.
... We will speculate on why African Americans and Hispanic/Latinos may start with more support for perp walks in the Discussion section. Barkan (2014) reported a similar phenomenon where religiosity suppressed the effect of gender on abortion rights. Many scholars found that gender is not associated with support. ...
Research Summary
Perp walks have been declared constitutionally acceptable even though the practice could be perceived to be a form of preconviction punishment and a manifestation of populist punitiveness. In adjudicating the constitutionality of perp walks, courts have employed a balancing test in which the interests of the press and the public's desire to know about the activities of law enforcement are weighted heavily. No research has been aimed at examining public opinion about this practice, however. We report the results of a national opt‐in survey of public opinion on perp walks and find that less than one third of the sample respondents support them. By employing models derived from research on the influence of race and ethnicity on attitudes toward criminal justice policies, we find that, after controlling for concerns about the police and due process rights violations, African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos are more supportive of perp walks than are Whites. These findings suggest that perp walks are one of a few areas in which racial/ethnic minorities might take a harsher view of punitive criminal justice policies compared with Whites.
Policy Implications
Media coverage of some perp walks is likely unavoidable in a society with a free press, but the unscripted media coverage of a perp walk is different than the intentional coordination of a perp walk between law enforcement and the media. This practice of deliberately publicizing the arrest of criminal suspects has been defended by prosecutors and police. Contrary to claims that the public wants perp walks, however, we find that more people oppose than support perp walks. In light of the multiple constitutional concerns surrounding this practice, these results suggest that the orchestration of perp walks by law enforcement should be reconsidered.
... Another potential explanation for the discrepancy between these two studies is the omission of a suppressor variable which may be masking the expected relationship (Barkan, 2014). A suppressor variable can reveal an expected relationship because it "increases the predictive validity of another variable (or set of variables) by its inclusion in a regression equation" (Conger, 1974, p. 36). ...
Lead is an environmental toxin that contributes to several health and neurological development problems, with young children particularly at risk. Research shows that elevated blood lead levels (EBLLs) are higher in communities characterized by concentrated disadvantage. However, studies have provided conflicting evidence regarding the relationship between concentrated disadvantage, lead exposure, and crime rates. We analyzed data from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Census Bureau, and Boston Police Department to help address several issues in the literature. Specifically, we examined EBLLs at the census tract-level and accounted for the percentage of homes built before 1979 to overcome previous research limitations regarding lead exposure measures, unit of analysis, and omitted variables. Our findings revealed that (1) the impact of concentrated disadvantage on EBLL rates was exacerbated by the amount of pre-1979 housing and (2) concentrated disadvantage intensified the effect of EBLLs on crime rates, but only after accounting for pre-1979 housing.
... This suggests that cultural issues may be playing a major role in sustaining the gender gap in political behavior and attitudes. Conversely, other studies have shown that gender does not have a strong effect on Americans' attitudes toward abortion (Barkan 2014;Cook, Jelen, and Wilcox 1992;Zigerell and Barker 2011) and same-sex marriage (Gaines and Garand 2010). Hence, although there are plausible reasons to think that gender could be a strong determinant of attitudes toward the religious exemption to the HHS mandate, the jury is still out. ...
In recent years, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contraception mandate associated with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been a contentious issue that has created clash-of-rights claims between advocates of reproductive freedom and advocates of religious freedom. Americans differ considerably in their views toward whether religiously affiliated institutions that object to the use of contraceptives should be granted an exemption to the HHS contraception mandate. This article explores the determinants of Americans’ support for or opposition to the religious exemption. We focus particularly on the effects of individuals’ religious orientations, gender, and political attitudes that generate support for competing rights claims. Using data from a 2012 Pew Research Center survey, we (surprisingly) find little evidence of a gender effect. Rather, we find that support for the religious exemption is driven largely by church attendance and moral conservatism, with adherence to specific religious traditions having relatively minor effects. We also find that support for the religious exemption to the HHS contraception mandate is influenced by political variables (i.e., partisanship and ideology, attitudes toward President Obama, and Tea Party support) and demographic attributes (i.e., number of children in a given household, racial/ethnic identity, education, and age). We conclude that the clash of values over the contraception mandate is driven largely by religion and political attitudes.
Americans disagree on legal abortion now about as much as they did in the 1970s, but their attitudes now sort much more according to political identity. Differences of opinion by religion, gender, race, and work that were key to understanding abortion attitudes in the 1970s persisted through 2021. The General Social Survey shows that first conservatives increased their opposition to legal abortion rights; their mean score dropped 1.1 points (on a 6-point scale) from 3.8 to 2.7 from 1974 to 2004. As conservatives’ opinions leveled off, liberals increased their support of abortion rights from 4.7 in 2004 to 5.3 or 5.4 in 2021 (because of Covid-19, survey mode changed, creating uncertainty about the sources of change). Women were significantly more divided by political ideology than men were throughout the time series, but gendered political differences did not displace or reduce religious, educational, racial, or work-life differences.
The chapter by Ann Nolan gives us a whistle-stop historical overview of the career of Irish politician Mary O’Rourke. O’Rourke rose through the political ranks of the Fianna Fáil party to become Minister of Education. The chapter charts her journey to power and her success in overhauling Ireland’s sex education provisions, which were influenced by sociopolitical transformation in Ireland following membership in the EU, the global AIDS crisis, and the enduring cultural and political influence of the Catholic Church.
I report findings from a pair of conjoint experiments that presented respondents with a series of profiles of pregnant women and asked whether it should be possible for each to obtain a legal abortion. The profiles varied the reason for the abortion, gestational age, and demographic characteristics of the hypothetical woman. I find little evidence that women’s demographic characteristics—including their purported ethnoracial identities—affect these judgments. In contrast, the effects of gestational age and the reason for the abortion are substantial. Notably, the effects of gestational age appear to be linear and unresponsive to trimester and viability thresholds commonly cited in elite discourse. I also find that the reason for the abortion becomes more consequential as gestational age increases. Finally, I consider whether these effects vary with respondents’ party affiliation and gender. The findings offer new insights into the contours of abortion attitudes in the United States and illustrate the strengths and limitations of conjoint designs.
This book examines six different policy arenas: voting access, gun control, health care, reproductive rights, water, and COVID-19 pandemic response, comparing policy choices in states in the South with states in the non-South.
: This study aimed to know the attitudes of Jordanians people toward abortion deformed fetuses, and it aimed to investigate the effect of some variables on these attitudes. In order to achieve the aims of this study, a questionnaire of attitudes toward abortion deformed fetuses were used to collect data from 800 persons (344 males and 456 females). The results showed that the percentage of Jordanians people who refused abortion deformed fetuses is (43.5%). Also it indicated that there are statistically significant differences between the Jordanians people in the attitudes toward abortion deformed fetuses due to gender, and the differences favored to males. Also, there are no statistically significant differences between Jordanian people in the attitudes due to (age, educational level & existence of a disability in the individual's family).
In the five decades since its inception in 1971, the General Social Survey (GSS) project has prospectively recorded the current characteristics, backgrounds, behaviors, and attitudes of representative cross sections of American adults covering more than two generations and more than a century of birth cohorts. A foundational resource for contemporary social science, data it produces and disseminates enable social scientists to develop broad and deep understandings into the changing fabric of US society, and aid legions of instructors and students in teaching and learning. It facilitates internationally comparative survey research and places the United States in the context of other societies through the International Social Survey Program, which it cofounded. This article first recounts the GSS's origins, design, and development. It then surveys contributions based on GSS data to studies of stratification and inequality, religion, sociopolitical trends, intergroup relations, social capital and social networks, health and well-being, culture, and methodology.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 46 is July 30, 2020. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
The lack of US paid parental leave policies has increasingly gained public and political attention. Yet it is unclear whether public support for such a policy will translate to enactment. To better understand support for leave, we compare it to another major gender policy issue: abortion rights. Using a unique question from the 2012 General Social Survey, our logistic models show that: (a) respondents who support more liberal abortion policy are more likely to support some amount of leave rather than no leave; and (b) abortion rights support does not distinguish between respondents who support some paid leave over a more robust leave policy. We also highlight that the strongest support for leave comes from political liberals and those who hold progressive views toward gender roles, who are also abortion rights supporters. Overall, sources of policy support for the two issues somewhat overlap, but findings also echo the previously discussed divided and inconsistent landscape of US gender-family policy.
Abortion remains a hot-button political topic in the United States. Previous research demonstrates the impact of religiosity and gender on attitudes toward abortion legality. However, limited work has examined the relationship between abortion stigma and abortion legality attitudes. Furthermore, as both gender and religiosity are connected to stigma, it is plausible that gender, religiosity, and stigma might interact to drive abortion legality attitudes. The current work used an online, self-administered sample of U.S. adults, recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk. A moderated moderation analysis aimed to demonstrate the effects of abortion stigma on abortion legality attitudes, and explore interactions between gender, religiosity, and abortion stigma. Results showed a significant main effect of stigma on legality attitudes, such that increased stigma was related to more negative attitudes. Furthermore, there was a significant three-way interaction of religiosity, gender, and stigma. For men, religiosity significantly predicted abortion legality attitudes at low stigma, but for women, religiosity was related to legality attitudes at all levels of stigma. These results have implications for prediction of abortion legality attitudes, policy support, and voting behaviors and can inform abortion stigma reduction programs.
We explored whether abortion attitudes differed by respondents’ sex and country-level abortion policy context. Data were collected between 2010 and 2014 from 69,901 respondents from 51 countries. Abortion attitudes were scored on a ten-point Likert scale (1 = “never justifiable”; 10 = “always justifiable”). Country-level abortion policy context was dichotomized as “less restrictive” or “more restrictive.” We conducted linear regression modeling with cluster effects by country to assess whether respondents’ sex and abortion policy context were associated with abortion attitudes, controlling for sociodemographic characteristics. On average, women had more supportive abortion attitude scores than men (Mean = 3.38 SD = 2.76 vs. Mean = 3.24 SD = 2.82, p < .001). Respondents in countries with more restrictive policy contexts had less supportive attitudes than those in less restrictive contexts (Mean = 2.55 SD = 2.39 vs. Mean = 4.09 SD = 2.96, p < .001). In regression models, abortion attitudes were more supportive among women than men (b = 0.276, p < .001) and in less restrictive versus more restrictive countries (b = 0.611, p < .001). Younger, educated, divorced, non-religious, and employed respondents had more supportive scores (all p < .05). Systematic differences were observed in abortion attitudes by respondents’ sex and policy context, which have potential implications for women’s autonomy and abortion access, which should be explored in future research.
Background & Aim: Abortion, as one of the factors affecting maternal health, is considered as a health and social problem. This paper aimed to investigate the status of abortion among Kurdish women in Mahabad and to determine the prevalence of spontaneous abortion and induced abortion and its related factors.
Materials & Methods: This research is a cross-sectional survey. The study sample size included 360 married women, aged 15- 49 years old. Researcher constructed questionnaire was adopted for collecting data. Using cluster sampling, four regions were selected, and women were chosen through random sampling. Data were analyzed by SPSS and PLS software, and X2 and Logistic regression (P= 0.05) were adopted for analyzing the relationships of variables.
Results: A total of 30.6 % of women had experienced abortion and 34.5% of them had induced abortion. Women with high socioeconomic status mostly committed induced abortion and those with low-level socioeconomics had spontaneous abortion (x2 = 6.421, P = 0.02). Women who were employed or had high level of education mostly committed induced abortion (x2 = 28.40, P= 0.001). According to logistic regression, individualism (B = 0.612, P= 0.04), rationality (B = 0.979, P= 0.02), and adherence to religion (B =-0.987, P= 0.006) had significant impacts on committing induced abortion.
Conclusion: Unmet needs of women can affect induced abortion. Unmet needs besides religious and secular beliefs may determine the level of induced abortion in society. The increasing tendency toward individualism and instrumental rationality may increase the couples’ tendency to control the number of children. It is the case while the failure of contraception may lead to induced abortion.
Abortion Attitudes are determined by a multitude of psychological constructs. Previous research has stressed the role of Sexism and Religiosity in understanding abortion attitudes. However, other aspects have been overlooked. We discuss the influence of Respect for Life and specially Sexual Morality, which have strongest associations with abortion attitudes than other constructs.
In an era of rising college costs and stagnant grant-based student aid, many young adults rely on their parents' resources and student loans to pay for their postsecondary education. In this study I ask how parents' income and education are linked to young adults' student loan debt. I develop and test two perspectives regarding the functional form of the association between parents' income, parents' education, and student loan debt. I have four key findings. First, the relationship between parents' income and student loan debt is nonlinear, such that young adults from middle-income families have a higher risk for debt than do those from low- and high-income families. Second, young adults from college-educated and high-income families are relatively protected from debt. Third, the association between parents' socioeconomic status (SES) and debt is modified by postsecondary institutional characteristics and is strongest at private and high-cost institutions. Finally, the effect of parents' SES on debt varies across the debt distribution. Parents' SES is strongly predictive of entry into debt, but there are few differences conditional on going into debt. This suggests that socioeconomic disparities in debt are primarily driven by the probability of going into debt rather than differences among debtors. However, compared to their more advantaged counterparts, young adults from low-SES backgrounds have a higher risk of accruing debt burdens that exceed the national average.
Objective: Current research has suggested that characteristics of the victim (e.g., sex, race, age) and situational factors (e.g., injury, relationship to the offender) influence police reporting. Questions remain as to what other variables influence police reporting as well as the particular motivational mechanisms that move victims, and others, to report victimization incidents. This study introduces negative emotionality to investigate the direct and mediation effects of emotions on police reporting. Method: Using data from the British Crime Survey, regression models were used to explore the path from individual and incident characteristics to police reporting. Negative emotionality was introduced into the regression models as a key mediator in this pathway. Results: Negative emotionality significantly increased the chance of police reporting. Negative emotionality also mediated some of the influence of individual and incident characteristics on police reporting. Conclusion: The results suggest that emotions are important in determining why some incidents come to the attention of the police. They also reveal that victims who come to the attention of the police are often dealing with a multitude of intense negative emotions. This suggests that programs that focus on victims’ emotions, such as restorative justice, may be more successful in meeting the needs of victims than traditional approaches. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)
Scholars of religion have long known that women are more religious than men, but they disagree about the reasons underlying this difference. Risk preference theory suggests that gender gaps in religiosity are a consequence of men's greater propensity to take risks, and that irreligiosity is analogous to other high-risk behaviors typically associated with young men. Yet, research using risk preference theory has not effectively distinguished those who perceive a risk to irreligiousness from those who do not. In this article, we evaluate risk preference theory. We differentiate those who believe in an afterlife, who perceive a risk to irreligiousness, from nonbelievers who perceive no risk associated with the judgment after death. Using General Social Survey and World Values Survey data, multivariate models test the effects of gender and belief on religiousness. In most religions and nations the gender gap is larger for those who do not believe in an afterlife than for those who do, contradicting the predictions of risk preference theory. The results clearly demonstrate that the risk preference thesis is not a compelling explanation of women's greater average religiosity.
This article provides a critical review of empirical research on attitudes toward abortion among mass publics in the United States, with a view toward suggesting promising avenues for future research. We identify three such themes: Accounting for pro-life movement among mass attitudes in recent years, when the composition of the U.S. population would seem to trend in a pro-choice direction; explaining the sources of party polarization of the abortion issue; and anticipating changes in abortion attitudes which might result from public debate over human cloning.
The sociology of religion is experiencing a period of substantial organiza-tional and intellectual growth. Recent theoretical and empirical papers on the sociology of religion appearing in top journals in sociology have generated both interest and controversy. We begin with a selective overview of re-search on religious beliefs and commitments. Second, we investigate the in-fluence of religion on politics, the family, health and well-being, and on free space and social capital. Finally, we review rational choice theories in the so-ciology of religion and the controversies surrounding applications of these perspectives.
We develop and test several predictions about who feels most strongly concerning the legalization of abortion. Our initial prediction is that if those who hold a mixed stance about abortion are excluded, the remaining consistent supporters and opponents of abortion should show equal strength of feeling with regard to their respective positions. Using national survey data and several different measures of attitude strength, this prediction is disconfirmed: opponents of abortion are far more likely than proponents to regard the abortion issue as important. This finding holds true when religious affiliation is controlled. We further predict that blacks are less likely than whites to show strong feelings on the abortion issue, and this is confirmed. Finally, we predict that among pro-choice supporters, women will give greater importance to the issue than men, and this is also confirmed.
This paper examines the role of religion in adolescence for shaping subsequent family formation. Data were drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 13,895). We explored the role of three dimensions of religious life—affiliation, attendance, and religious fervor—both singly and in combination for the transition to either marriage or cohabitation. Although each dimension predicted subsequent union formation, it was the particular combination of these dimensions that was important for understanding the likelihood of cohabiting. We also found evidence that patterns of religious identity, attendance, and fervor in adolescence were associated with the length of cohabitation, the likelihood of the cohabitation ending in marriage, and beliefs about the purpose of cohabitation.
Much social science research suggests that men and women have similar abortion policy preferences. But this inference may be incorrect because studies have focused on understanding preferences regarding the reasons women may seek abortions, while neglecting preferences as they pertain to the timing of abortions. Analysis of responses to a team module of the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study indicated that women in the sample were more likely than men to support legal abortion for any reason, but they were also more likely than men to restrict that support to the first trimester for non‐elective abortions. This elective‐but‐early policy captured the preferences of a large number of respondents, suggesting that politicians and researchers should account for the timing dimension of the abortion issue.
This study empirically examines the public and social policy question: Do state restrictive abortion laws affect the likelihood that women use more highly effective contraceptive methods? Using contraceptive use data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System 2002 survey, the empirical results show that Medicaid Funding Restrictions, Informed Consent Laws, and Two-Visit Laws have no significant impact on adult women's (ages 18-44, 18-24, 25-34, 35-44) use of highly effective contraceptive methods. A state's antiabortion attitudes, which likely contribute to the enactment of restrictive abortion laws in a state, are a major factor in inducing greater use of highly effective contraceptive methods by adult women at-risk of an unintended pregnancy. The empirical findings remain robust for various population subgroups of adult women (i.e., married, single, employed, unemployed, with children, no children and college educated).
Earlier research on attitudes toward abortion has found little or no difference between men and women. To the limited extent that there is any gender effect, men are slightly more inclined than women to be prochoice (e.g., Cook, Jelen, and Wilcox 1992). Women, however, have been found to regard the issue as more important (Scott and Schuman 1988). The present study uses General Social Survey data from 1972 through 1994 to further explore gender and attitudes toward abortion. We find that within three marital statuses–single, married, widowed–men are somewhat more supportive of abortion rights but that women consider the issue to be more important and have clearer but not necessarily stronger attitudes than men. When differences in workforce participation are controlled, the sex effect is reversed, with women being more prochoice than men. Although significantly related to abortion attitudes, race, marital status, and religious identity are not relevant to this reversal in the sex effect.
Thirty-five years on from the abortion rights victory of Roe v. Wade, abortion proponents in the USA continue to battle political opposition and the formidable abortion opponents that seek to overturn legal abortion in the long run, and limit access to services in the short run. This article outlines the many battles over national and foreign aid policies, legal changes, attacks on and limits to access that have characterised the ongoing abortion debate in the USA. Beyond the political, it further illustrates how, despite the legal and human rights discourse the politicians and advocacy bodies pursue, deficient access and funding and stigma are overwhelmingly the critical barriers for the poor and ethnic populations, demonstrating that the 'choice' debate is not a realistic one in a context where poor mothers can neither afford to have an abortion, nor mother another child.
Researchers using survey data to study religious commitment often create additive indices in which respondents receive a “point” on the scale for each behavior in which they engage, implicitly assuming that each activity is equally normative in each religious tradition. This has led some scholars to suggest that these scales can be “biased” in favor of evangelicals. In this paper, we introduce a unique series of survey questions asking respondents how important various activities are “for people of your religion”. We use these new measures to generate tradition-specific weights for each component of a religious commitment scale according to the activity’s perceived importance. We then present a method for constructing scales when such “importance” items are not available, using the frequency of behavior within each religious tradition as a surrogate for importance. We find that constructing religious commitment scales that take into account the normative differences across religious traditions produces statistically significant differences in the levels of commitment by religious tradition, especially among Roman Catholics. However, the substantive significance is less evident. When various measures of religious commitment are included as independent variables in multivariate models of political attitudes, their performance is remarkably similar. It appears that the standard additive indices of religious commitment commonly utilized by scholars of religion and politics are adequate for most analyses of social and political attitudes.
A growing body of literature finds an inverse association between religiosity and several types of deviant behavior. Although studies of adolescent sexuality form a large part of this literature, it is not clear that their results necessarily pertain to adults. This study examines the relationship between religiosity and the number of sexual partners among never-married adults in pooled samples of the General Social Survey. The major findings indicate that religiosity reduces the number of partners and does so partly because of moral disapproval of premarital sex. Additional analyses address whether the inverse association between religiosity and number of partners varies across gender and race categories. Final remarks address the theoretical importance of the findings and outline areas for further research.
The fact that women are more religious than men is one of the most consistent findings in the sociology of religion. Miller and Stark (2002) propose that a gender difference in risk preference of physiological origin might explain this phenomenon. While acknowledging the utility of their risk-preference mechanism, we believe that their assumption regarding the genesis of this difference is a premature concession to biology. Returning to Miller's original paper on gender, risk, and religiosity, we draw on power-control theory (PCT), developed in the work of John Hagan and colleagues, to introduce a plausible socialization account for these differences. We evaluate these claims using data from the General Social Survey. Women raised by high-socioeconomic status (SES) mothers are less religious than women raised by low-education mothers, but mother's SES has little effect on men's chances of being irreligious and father's SES has a negligible effect on the gender difference in religiosity.
Suppressor variables are well known in the context of multiple regression analysis. Using several examples, the authors demonstrate that the different forms of the suppressor phenomenon described in the literature occur not only in prediction equations but also in the explanatory use of multiple regression, including structural equations models. Moreover, they show that the probability of their occurrence is relatively high in models with latent variables, in which the suppressed variable is corrected for measurement errors. Special attention will be paid to the two-wave model since this is particularly liable to the suppressor phenomenon. The occurrence of suppression in structural equations models is usually not foreseen and confronts researchers with problems of interpretation. The authors discuss definitions of the suppressor phenomenon, show how the unwary researcher can be warned against it, and present guidelines for the interpretation of the results
The abortion issue is defined here as a gender conflict of rights, and the research question is formulated within an interest group framework. Using data from a U.S. national opinion survey the merits of the formulation that opinions on abortion should reflect conflicting gender interests are explored. Although no gender polarization on abortion opinions is found, values regarding gender equality for women and conservatism for men reflect the impact of self-interest. The most powerful predictors of opposition to abortion are different for American women and men: high religiosity (for women) and low education (for men). The implications of these findings for a gender-equalitarian future are discussed. While support for a solution based on increased education is noncontroversial, sacrificing religiosity to gender equality is a more problematic proposition.