SALT LAKE CITY – Republicans tend to have happier marriages than Democrats, according to a new University of Utah study.
The study, by University of Utah sociologist Nicholas Wolfinger and a colleague from the University of Virginia, W. Bradford Wilcox, reveals Republicans are less likely to be divorced as well.
Wolfinger and Wilcox published the study Monday in Family Studies: The Blog of the Institute for Family Studies.
Titled “Red Families vs. Blue Families: Which are Happier?,” the findings add to an ongoing debate over which set of political ideals help to lead people to a happy life, said Wolfinger.
“(The research) contributes to an ongoing debate about whether ‘blue values’ vs. ‘red values’ are better for families in America, and therefore to a larger partisan debate,” Wolfinger said.
Prior to the research by Wolfinger and Wilcox, the U of U said other studies had claimed “blue” families were traditionally more strong and stable, than “red” families with more conservative beliefs.
Wolfinger and Wilcox used a multivariate analysis of national data from the 2010-2014 General Social Survey to draw their conclusions.
“The party ID gap in marital happiness can be largely explained by the fact that Republicans are more likely to be white and to attend church regularly, both factors positively correlated with marital happiness,” Wolfinger said.
