Is Coulter right?

The ridiculous Ann Coulter says:

If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president...women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

There's some academic evidence to support at least the first half of this assertion: this paper (pdf) is called "Women prefer larger governments":

We show, for a wide cross-section of developed and developing countries, that higher female participation rates in the labor market are positively associated with larger governments...Female labor force participation is found to cause an increase in government size, with a 10 percent rise in the former leading to a 6.5 to 9 percent rise in the latter.

Insofar as Democrats traditionally offer bigger government, this corroborates Coulter.
But it doesn't follow that women vote stupidly.  Quite the opposite. As they work outside the home, they want more government services such as education and healthcare - because government provision of childcare helps them work and earn more. This is rational enough, even for single women as these often anticipate becoming mothers later.
The thing is, only the most bigoted partisan could possibly see this as an argument for taking away women's right to vote. Surely, a more reasonable position is that it merely shows the truth of Isaiah Berlin's saying, that political goods cannot all coincide. There's a tradeoff between the good of limited government (assuming this to be a good) and the good of empowering women.

Comments

[Jock]

I thought that the statsistic was the opposite in the UK, that if only women had had the vote we would have had continuous conservative governments since WWII or something like that.

[Matt Munro]

Women entering the workforce cause more legislation (equal this and this, time off for this and that) and thus more work for civil servants monitoring and co-ordinating the implementation of that legislation.
Agree with the last sentence except that it contains the implicit assumption that it is possible to advance the intersts of women (or any other group) without disadvantaging the interests of another group.
A final sexist comment if I may, women tend to vote for the person rather than the policies, men tend to do the opposite. For reasons that escape me they seem to prefer the charisma free zone of Gordon Brown to the foppish youth of Cameron.

[Peter Risdon]

Ann Coulter a bigoted partisan? Out on a limb there, Chris.

Legitimacy for governments comes from citizens. Every citizen must be entitled to vote. That's the end of it.

[Tim Worstall]

"Every citizen must be entitled to vote."

Tsk. Every adult citizen, every sane citizen, perhaps, but even you don't believe "every".

That my definition of "sane adult" would leave me as a benevolent dictator is only the other extreme of your statement.

[chris]

Jock - the tendency for women to be more Conservative has been fading over time, at the same time as their labour force participation has risen:
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/publications/rmw/a-majority-of-over-100.shtml
I suspect some of the reason why women vote Conservative is an age effect. Old people are more Conservative, and thanks to two world wars, there have for a long time been more old women than old men. Controlling for age, women recently haven't been more Conservative than men:
http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/documents/Fawcett-MORI%20Ipsos%20briefing%208-9-06.doc

[Sam]

Can't bring the figures up right now, but I recently read a couple of studies that showed (in the US) a strong bias towards the left amongst single and divorced women, and a strong bias towards the right amongst married women.

Which again isn't surprising - the division falls more or less exactly where you would expect a rational economic actor to draw the line between "I want to keep my family's money" and "Tax those other people to give me more stuff".

[Peter Risdon]

Actually, I do, Tim. The dangers of deciding who can vote seem to me to outweigh the dangers of allowing insane people to vote.

[dearieme]

The key improvement is to stop people under 35 from voting.

[ad]

Aren't women more likely to work in the public sector?

And isn't working in the public sector positively correlated with a belief that more money should be spent on public sector workers?

[Fabian Tassano]

"As they work outside the home, [women] want more government services such as education and healthcare - because government provision of childcare helps them work and earn more. This is rational enough ..."

Is it? Surely they could pay for childcare privately, as well as through taxes. So how does that explain why they choose government over market?

Even if Cavalcanti and Tavares' model makes sense on its own terms, it seems to be based on the questionable assumption that the government is value-neutral, and will provide services in a way which reflect the preferences of the individuals who use them.

[Nason]

Well, Daniel Finkelstein has proved that he should be the one to loose his right to vote. Because if he cannot see satire (from Anne Coulter) then he's too dumb to vote. I'm am no fan of Coulter's searing prose but her modus operandi is to use angry sarcasm to make a point. And she separates herself from her left and right-wing peers by the depth of her research and references to back up her assertions. And by the way, I agree with her underlying point, which is big government is the root tyranny. If our law makers weren't taxing us into poverty, then we wouldn't be asking (and expecting) government to provide services for which we should pay ourselves.

[reason]

Nason,
I'm not sure where you live, but please check out the price of land in economically vibrant cities. If we really were all being taxed into poverty it would fall to zero.

[reason]

Of course women want larger government, they are physically more vulnerable. No women believes (as many men stupidly do) that they would come out on top in violent anarchy. They want the world made safe for them, by people answerable to them. They are natural social democrats.

[Michael]

The fact that Ann Coulter backed Bush in 2000 for President should say quite enough about her judgment. Another 4 years of a "Passionate Conservative"? Make room in Britain, me and my family will float across the ocean if that or Mr. 9/11 (Rudy)) takes the reins.

On that note, I do apologize to the rest of the world for Ann Coulter. If she really wanted to help out America she wouldn't spew so much hate.

[Pseudonymous]

reason - why do you think increasing the size of the state will make the streets safer? Increasing the budget for the police perhaps - but not increasing the size of the budget of the NHS, DWP, and all the rest of them.

[Jim888]

"But it doesn't follow that women vote stupidly. Quite the opposite. As they work outside the home, they want more government services such as education and healthcare - because government provision of childcare helps them work and earn more... "

Crap. A woman in the home can tell D.C'acrites more about the economy than the GAO (what ever happend to the M3 figures for inflation?). They did not need to be "broaden" by getting out of the home - they got first hand viewing of the education system, the economy, and politics in general.

Coulter-giest continues to spew filth and due to ...what... makes her an opinion leader to do so? Oh right she inflames people to respond to her tripe - therefore she is important, more of the "social proof" as mentioned by the myopic Hawkins.

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