Study: Judges with daughters are more likely to rule in favor of women

Article here. Excerpt:

'For better or worse, personal relationships may account for why judges sometimes reach decisions at odds with their political views.

Researchers set out to test the effect of one relationship on judicial decisions: father and daughter. They found that judges who have daughters are more likely to rule in favor of women’s rights than those who don’t.

Maya Sen, a political scientist at the University of Rochester, and Adam Glynn, a government professor at Harvard, looked at 990 cases involving gender issues such as pregnancy discrimination. They evaluated 2,674 votes cast by 244 appeals court judges and found having at least one daughter increased the likelihood a judge ruled in favor of women’s rights in a gender-related case by 7 percent.

The difference is most pronounced with judges who have one child. If that child is a daughter, researchers found a 16 percent increase in the proportion of cases decided in favor of women’s rights. They found no added impact from having additional daughters.

Having a daughter made a bigger difference with conservative judges. Having a daughter had a more pronounced effect on judges appointed by Republican presidents, with an average 7 percent increase in the proportion of cases decided “in a feminist direction,” compared with a 4 percent increase for judges appointed by a Democratic president — judges whose decisions were already more likely to be left-leaning.'