The number: 31% vs. 21% — Pre-Palin Republican 'mommy penalty'
A Pew Social Trends poll — taken this summer before John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate — found that Republicans are significantly less likely to vote for a candidate who is a mother of young children than one who is a father of young children, other factors being equal. Barely one in five (21%) Republicans said they were very likely to support a hypothetical candidate for U.S. Congress who was the mother of school-age children, while 31% said they would support a father who had the identical personal and career profile. Among Democrats, gender and parenthood had the opposite effect: Democrats were significantly more likely to vote for a candidate for Congress who is the mother of small children than to support an identical candidate who is the father of small children (33% vs. 24%).
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