The effect of education and party membership on individual free market beliefs.

Abstract

Regarding the effect of education on political attitudes, some studies in Sociology find that higher levels of education are associated with an increase in liberal attitudes. Other studies in Political Science give reason to believe that party membership modifies the relationship between education and political attitudes. Both theories, however, focus on the development of cultural attitudes, and pay less attention to the development of economic attitudes (both of which are termed “political attitudes”). In other words, the effect of education and party membership on economic attitudes receives less attention and we seek to fill this gap. Using the World Values Survey, we show that at higher levels of education, Republicans and Democrats are further apart in their economic attitudes compared to Republicans and Democrats at lower levels of education. We conclude with a discussion of these findings in relation to the competing theories introduced above