Data and data analysis script supporting Is Fair Representation Good for Children? Effects of Electoral Partisan Bias in State Legislatures on Policies Affecting Children’s Health and Well-Being

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Statistics
View Statistics

Collection period

October 2021
January 2023

Date completed

2023/10/17

Date updated

Time period coverage

Geographic coverage

Source information

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Title

Data and data analysis script supporting Is Fair Representation Good for Children? Effects of Electoral Partisan Bias in State Legislatures on Policies Affecting Children’s Health and Well-Being

Published Date

2023-10-26

Author Contact

Karatekin, Canan
karat00@umn.edu

Type

Dataset
Observational Data

Abstract

Increasing evidence suggests that state policies impact constituents' health, but political determinants of health and health inequities remain understudied. Using state and year fixed-effects models, we determined the extent to which changes in electoral partisan bias in lower chambers of U.S. state legislatures (i.e., discrepancy between statewide vote share and seat share) were followed by changes in five state policies affecting children and families (1980-2019) and a composite of safety net programs (1999-2018). We examined effects on each policy and whether the effect was modified when bias was accompanied by unified party control. Next, we determined whether the effect differed depending on which party it favored. Less bias resulted only in higher AFDC/TANF benefits. Both pro-Democratic and pro-Republican bias was followed by decreased AFDC/TANF benefits and increased Medicaid benefits. AFDC/TANF recipients, unemployment benefits, minimum wage, and pre-K-12 education spending increased following pro-Democratic bias and decreased following pro-Republican bias. Estimated effects on the composite measure of safety net policies were all close to null. Some effects were modulated by unified party control. Results demonstrate that increasing fairness in elections is not a panacea by itself for increasing generosity of programs affecting children’s well-being. Indeed, bias can be somewhat beneficial for the expansiveness of some policies. Furthermore, with the exception of unemployment benefits and AFDC/TANF recipients, Democrats have not been using the additional power that comes with electoral bias to spend more on major programs that benefit children. Finally, after decades in which electoral bias was in Democrats’ favor, bias has started to shift toward Republicans in the last decade. This trend forecasts more cuts in almost all the policies in this study, especially education and AFDC/TANF recipients. There is a need for more research and advocacy emphasis on the political determinants of social determinants of health, especially at the state level.

Description

The files include the "readme for the partisan bias study" text document that provides an overview of the study and details about the other two files, the Excel file that has all the raw data for the study (Partisan bias study data.xls) and the R script used to analyze the data (Partisan bias study R script).

Referenced by

In press in Social Science and Medicine

Related to

Replaces

Replaced by

Publisher

Funding information

None

item.page.sponsorshipfunderid

item.page.sponsorshipfundingagency

item.page.sponsorshipgrant

Previously Published Citation

Suggested citation

Karatekin, Canan; Mason, Susan M.; Latner, Michael; Gresham, Bria; Corcoran, Frederique; Hing, Anna; Barnes, Andrew J.. (2023). Data and data analysis script supporting Is Fair Representation Good for Children? Effects of Electoral Partisan Bias in State Legislatures on Policies Affecting Children’s Health and Well-Being. Retrieved from the Data Repository for the University of Minnesota (DRUM), https://doi.org/10.13020/62rc-r153.
View/Download file
File View/OpenDescriptionSize
Partisan bias study data.xlsxThe raw data5.73 MB
RedistrictingR.csvCSV version of raw data980.26 KB
Partisan bias study R script.RR script used to analyze the data311.02 KB
Readme for the partisan bias study.txtReadme documentation file25.62 KB

Content distributed via the University Digital Conservancy may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor. By using these files, users agree to the Terms of Use. Materials in the UDC may contain content that is disturbing and/or harmful. For more information, please see our statement on harmful content in digital repositories.