In a blog post, Auren Hoffman wondered if politicians with daughters are more successful than those without. It's an intriguing thought, and there may be some truth to the suggestion. We focused on American presidents and discovered that each of the last 10 presidents had at least one daughter, but only five had sons.
Why would daughters have an impact? Perhaps voters think that presidents with daughters will be more empathetic to women's issues, or perhaps the following anonymous comment on the Marginal Revolution blog offers some insight:
ALL of my male friends who had children were changed for the better by having at least one daughter. It is not a wife who socializes a husband, it is a daughter.
Before Kennedy's presidency, however, there doesn't appear to be any benefit to having daughters. What could explain the switch at the Kennedy vs Nixon election? Perhaps it was because that was the first contest which included televised debates. Before television, it is likely that policies had a greater role in affecting voters' decisions, whereas in the television era, other factors such as charisma and empathy may have started to play a bigger role.
Click on the image on the left for a full-size view.
The table below displays all the children of all the presidents. If you notice any other patterns, let us know in the comments below.
Its surprising to see how many children of presidents died at birth or in childhood. This continued all the way up to and including Kennedy! Presumably, American Presidents (and even before they were elected) had access to the best healthcare available.
posted by Anonymous
Not surprising at all considering good health care didn't really exist until the middle of the 20th century. add a comment
Reply by
yyynation76 (1):
I believe in the case of Kennedy, the daughter who died was a result of a miscarriage. No amount of health care can prevent that. Watch the way to word this, please. add a comment
I buy the empathy argument. Even judges in the Great Sanhedrin (Jewish Supreme Court in ancient times) had to have children because the childless were less likely to be sympathetic and humble.
Total sons of all presidents: 100 and total daughters 70... thats a pretty big difference over a pretty good sample size. I am not sure, but it seems statistically significant, and since daughters/sons should be relatively close to 50/50 maybe something else is happening there?
You'd really have to compare these presidents to the candidates they defeated to make any kind of point here. Seems to me recent defeated presidential contenders had daughters too.
Reply by
udaipur (219):
I don't think that would actually prove or disprove anything... I think the chart indicates that it might be really helpful at that level - this can be true even if the losing candidates had daughters too. add a comment
has nobody noticed that the autosum feature of this spreadsheet also takes into account children that died and adds them to the total... just look at george h w bush and his daughter, and also ronald reagan had two daughters and one died, magically now he has three daughters?
Reply by
calcutta (168):
So, a daughter that died in childhood shouldn't count? It's as if she never existed? add a comment
posted by Anonymous
As someone with four grandchildren - 3 living, one stillborn - I believe the children count. add a comment
posted by Anonymous
people replying to this comment don't understand - it's not whether they count, it's that they are being double-counted ... if you have 2 daughters and one dies, you don't get 3 daughters total add a comment
Not surprising at all considering good health care didn't really exist until the middle of the 20th century. add a comment
I believe in the case of Kennedy, the daughter who died was a result of a miscarriage. No amount of health care can prevent that. Watch the way to word this, please. add a comment