Do you have kids? If yes, how old are they and do they live at home with you? If not why not?
And yes... whatever is your family situation, how does this effect your politics?
This topic came out of last week's comments, and so once again I am also soliciting suggestions for next week's "Demographic Tuesdays."
(And, as always, this poll will work best if it were to be up in the Recommended Diaries" secion for the whole day, allowing all regions of the country a chance to see it both in the morning and evening.)
Here is the Census 2000 report, Children and the Households They Live In (pdf) and here is more Census Bureau information on children in general and other topics about children, and more on Families and Living Arrangements.
Our categories are:
- No children, yet: I do want to have children in future, but none yet; I am still too young; and/or don't have partner; or other reasons why not yet but plan to.
- No children, and not going to have to have any, and don't want any (childless by choice).
- No children & not likely to have any, but wanted to have them (childless NOT by choice).
- Have 1 child & they are under 18 & they live with me.
- Have 2 children, at least one under 18 & lives with me.
- Have 3 children, at least one under 18 & lives with me.
- Have 4 or more children, at least one still under 18 & lives with me.
- Have 1 child & they are under 18 but lives elsewhere e.g,. with other parent).
- Have 2 children, at least one under 18, but none liveswith me(e.g,. with other parent).
- Have 3 children, at least one under 18, but none with me (e.g,. with other parent).
- have 4 or more children, at least one still under 18 none lives with me (e.g,. with other parent).
- Have 1 child, over 18 now (regardless of whether living at home or not).
- Have 2 children, both over 18 (regardless of whether living at home or not).
- Have 3 children, all over 18 (regardless of whether living at home or not).
- have 4 or more children, all over 18 (regardless of whether living at home or not).
I am using the split around having children up to age 18 to represent both "school-age" children (through high school) and live at home/dependent/minors. Since if your children are all "grown" up, the political and social and economic meaning is different.
Similarly if you have "minor" children of traditional dependent age, but they do not mostly live you, for example you are divorced and they live mostly with the other parent, then that too is a different situation.
Related items not addressed in the Poll itself, but up for disucssion, might include:
- Are you a single parent, or is it a two parent household.
- How old were you when you had kids?
- Fertility problems, adoption, IVF, etc.
- Parents who are LGBT.
- Households with both children and grandparents living together.
- If not a parent, why not?
- Other...?
And again we ask, what is the relationship between your family and household situation regarding kids, and your politics?
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MyDD recently commented on our poll results, comparing the age distribtution of Daily Kos (older) to MyDD (younger), as at least a partial reason for the difference in the relative preferences for Edwards vs. Obama on the two sites.
Here are two demographic results diaries over at MyDD:
Demographics: http://www.mydd.com/...
Politics: http://www.mydd.com/...
Meanwhile, we have now polled on:
Minor Polls:
So again I am also soliciting suggestions for next week's "Demographic Tuesdays"... what topics should we do in the future?
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The usual caveats:
Of course these polls are not "scientific." Since the poll is inherently self selecting and is not a random sample there is always the presumption of selection bias, making the survey results different than truth. These will never be valid random sample. And just size alone does not make it valid since still self selecting and has inherent selection bias. But probably has some validity... though since not a random sample, and don't know enough about total population, sample frame and self selecting factors, cannot even measure how inaccurate it is... Yet probably has some validity... yet not valid and can't even measure how invalid... yet....
Granting all that, there are some indicators suggestive of possible validity in these polls: for example if distriubtion is relatively stable and does not jump around wildly this is not definititive but suggestive (at least that it is not being "freeped". Also, when poll done repeatedly, either same way, or only slightly different way (some advantage to doing slightly differently, if thought out, as test of validity), at different times, lets say different day of week, weekday and weekend, morning vs. night, months or years apart.
Some folks asked why should we do these demographic polls at all, and raised the issue of privacy concerns. As to the why question, the simple answer is "know thyself." Who are we when we spout off and comment? Also, it can be fun. It also helps the discussion of whatever the topic is. And yes, maybe it will be reported by other media or be used to market advertising to the site.
As to the privacy concerns, Kos has certainly made clear his strong views against "outing" the real identities of anybody. I do not know what access the site administrators have to the data or linkages of usernames to poll responses. Myself, I am just a regular user, and have nothing to do with administration or behind the scenes here. I am not doing anything with these polls (though I imagine somebody somewhere might be using them for a political science or sociology thesis). I don't know who has voted or what age goes with whom. I have no special access or use. All I have is the same bar graph and diary that is publicly visible. Also, there are no cross-tabs between any variables (e.g., prior urban-rural with region with religion). It is not like a questionnaire with multiple separate questions per single interviewee. I guess the question is a matter of what the site administrators COULD access and link or identify if they were so inclined, whether they WOULD do so; and what protections are there on system to prevent an outsider from doing so? Clearly if there were a serious break of confidentiality/privacy, the Kos community would react very badly. The simple answer is, if you are that concerned, with this or any other issue, then do not participate; don't vote. This is a voluntary poll, within one of many diaries on DKos, with DKos just among the nearly infinite number of webpages you can browse.
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