Generational Differences in Attitudes Toward Abortion

Abstract

Although scholars who focus on generational change generally portray the youngest cohorts as most liberal, this need not be so. Evidence is provided that among whites but not blacks, those who reached adulthood after the 1960s are less supportive of legal abortion than those who came of age during that decade. The decline in support for legal abortion is statistically significant after multivariate controls for demographic variables, religious and moral attitudes, attitudes toward gender roles, and general ideology and partisanship. Explanations for this result are tested.