Family Matters: How Family Concerns Relate to Policy Preferences and Political Choices

Join us for a lecture by Jane Green, Professor of Political Science and British Politics, Nuffield College, University of Oxford. Prof. Green's lecture draws on her work with Zack Grant and Geoffrey Evans, Nuffield Politics Research Centre.

Where do people get their policy preferences from? We argue that one over-looked but important mechanism is people’s family ties, comprising a key ‘in-group’ through which emotional bonds and linked fates mean the financial well-being of close family members, and the risks of supporting them, form an important driver of policy preferences and political choices. This talk will illustrate relationships between the perceived financial well-being of young adults and support for more pro-young policies, as well as the expected prioritisation of spending on different age groups and away from spending on one’s own age-group, and associations with support for different political parties. Our findings also reveal a ‘care risk’ motivation for greater spending on older generations. We conclude that family concerns offer a potential bridge towards greater consensus in an era of intergenerational policy divides and challenges.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science.