For instance, economist Noah Smith, who has argued that “liberal morality is simply better adapted for creating stable two-parent families in a post-industrialized world,” wondered if the new red families vs. blue families story held up at the family level: in his words, “Try doing family-level studies” of the red vs. blue divide. Republicans generally report higher happiness levels overall, which is understandable at one level (conservatism doesn’t challenge your comfort level much) but peculiar at another (if they’re so happy, what’s the deal with the endless anger and outrage?). The seven-percentage-point gap that exists between Republicans and Democrats without any demographic controls shrinks to three percentage points with those controls. Here, red America’s stronger religious and normative support for marriage—manifested in higher rates of marriage and lower rates of nonmarital childbearing—means that the divorce disadvantage in red America is outweighed by the fact that children are more likely to be born to a married family in more conservative counties. As Cahn and Carbone would predict, the American Community Survey indicates that a higher level of education is also linked to more marriage, less nonmarital childbearing, and more family stability at the county level (see Appendix below). W. Bradford Wilcox is a senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and the co-author of “For Richer, for Poorer: How Family Structures Economic Success in America.” He also directs the Home Economics Project at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies.
– A University of Virginia sociologist who's not convinced that liberal families are better off than conservative ones has what he says is more data to back up his theory. W. Bradford Wilcox says that not only do families who live in "red" conservative counties "enjoy somewhat stronger families" than those who live in "blue" liberal counties: He's also analyzed data about individual families, not just geographical areas, and finds that self-identified Republicans are more likely than self-identified Democrats to be married and less likely to be divorced, the New York Times reports. And of married people between the ages of 20 and 60 polled in the survey on the Institute of Family Studies website, Wilcox found that 67% of GOPers reported they were "very happy" in matrimony, while only 60% of Democrats were, and 60% of independents. The gap did shrink to three percentage points once certain other demographic factors were taken into account (e.g., whites and religious people were more likely to say they have happy marriages). However, Kevin Drum writes for Mother Jones that we should probably "call it a tie" instead, since the study was done for a right-wing website—"You have to figure it's as friendly toward Republicans as possible," he notes—and because Republicans may simply be less likely to admit when their marriages are rocky. "As Wilcox says, 'Perhaps Republicans are more optimistic, more charitable, or more inclined to look at their marriages through rose-colored glasses,'" Drum points out. But David Leonhardt writes for the Times that "it also seems possible that the more respect and even reverence for the idea of marriage in conservative communities affects people's behavior and attitudes toward their marriages," adding that, "given the widespread anxiety right now about upward mobility … it's worth looking for potential lessons from any political ideology." (A stunning 99% of evangelical Christians said they were happy a few years back.)