Expatriation 2025

Many posts have discussed citizenship and expatriation.

Benedict Vigers and Julie Ray at Gallup:

For the second straight year, about one in five Americans say they would like to leave the U.S. and move permanently to another country if they could. This heightened desire to migrate is driven primarily by younger women.

In 2025, 40% of women aged 15 to 44 say they would move abroad permanently if they had the opportunity. The current figure is four times higher than the 10% who shared this desire in 2014, when it was generally in line with other age and gender groups.

The percentage of younger women wanting to move to another country first rose decisively in 2016, the final year of President Barack Obama's second term. That year, Gallup surveyed the U.S. in June and July, after both parties’ presumptive nominees were set for the November election, which Donald Trump went on to win. Desire to migrate continued to climb afterward, hitting 44% in President Joe Biden’s last year in office and remaining near that level in 2025. This suggests a broader shift in opinion among younger women, rather than a solely partisan one.

Employment Class Divide

 Many posts have discussed economic and educational inequality. The effects of inequality reach many corners of American life.

Emily Peck at Axios:

College-educated women, particularly mothers, triumphed in the work force in recent years; for those without a degree, the story is less rosy.

Why it matters: The difference is likely about job quality — women with degrees can land positions with paid leave and flexibility that allow them to manage parenting and paid work (a responsibility that they're more likely to shoulder).

Those without degrees are not as lucky and are more likely to wind up in low-paying, service-sector roles with inconsistent schedules.

By the numbers: The share of college-educated women age 25-44 working full time increased to 73%, from 64%, over the past two decades, per an analysis of Census data shared exclusively with Axios, by Third Way, a center-left think tank.Non-college women's participation in the workforce meanwhile has essentially stagnated, only increasing by a single percentage point to 53% over that same period.

Zoom in: Mothers with college degrees are driving these advances.The share working full-time spiked to 68% in 2024, from 57% in 2004; while not budging for moms who didn't finish college.

The big picture: The rise of remote work has been particularly pivotal for women, allowing them to stay employed and still get parenting done — take children to the doctor, drop them off at the bus, etc.

Friction point: The education divide is even worse for men.The share of men without college degrees in the workforce has been declining for years, for different reasons — and not merely stagnating as it is for their women peers.

Between the lines: Unlike other advanced economies, the U.S. doesn't have any kind of nationwide paid family leave or sick leave offerings — instead it's left up to private businesses to decide what kinds of benefits to offer employees.

Diploma Divide and Marriage

 Many posts have discussed economic and educational inequality. The effects of inequality reach many corners of American life.

New @axios: Drop in marriage concentrated among women w/o college degrees in part because men in their world have worse economic prospects.

Yet another sign that male marriageability is falling among poor & w-class men.👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/DmO5nymDBU

— Brad Wilcox (@BradWilcoxIFS) January 31, 2025

Chambers, Clara and Goldman, Benjamin and Winkelmann, Joseph, Bachelors Without Bachelor's: Gender Gaps in Education and Declining Marriage Rates (January 01, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5086363 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5086363. Abstract:

Over the past half-century, the share of men enrolled in college has steadily declined relative to women. Today, 1.6 million more women than men attend four-year colleges in the U.S. This trend has not lowered marriage rates for college women, a substantial share of whom have historically married economically stable men without college degrees. Both historical evidence and cross-area comparisons suggest that worsening male outcomes primarily undermine the marriage prospects of non-college women. The gap in marriage rates between college-and non-college women is more than 50% smaller in areas where men have the lowest rates of joblessness and incarceration.

Gender Differences

 Mike Allen at Axios:

A flood of data reveals a little-discussed, future-defining trend: Men and women are going separate ways.The split is clear in politics, religion, education and the labor market, Axios' Erica Pandey reports.

Why it matters: For the next generation, gender is becoming the biggest predictor of how you think, act and vote.

"There's a much broader story here," says Daniel Cox, director of the Survey Center on American Life. "Even after all the votes are tallied and we've moved on from the 2024 election, we're not going to have resolved any of the cultural and relational tension between young men and young women."

• "You see it in politics: Women are turning left. Men are turning right.
• You see it in religion: For the first time ever recorded in the U.S., young men are more religious than young women.
• You see it in education: There are 2.4 million more women on U.S. college campuses than men, the American Institute for Boys and Men (AIBM) notes. Those degrees are often resulting in higher-wage jobs for women in big cities.
• You see it in the labor market: Wages and labor force participation have increased since the 1980s for college-educated men and women, and for working-class women. But they have stagnated for working-class men, who are also now significantly less likely to be employed than four decades ago, according to AIBM's analysis.
• You see it in visions for the future: Men are more likely than women to want marriage and kids, according to Pew Research Center.

Dating and Politics

Many posts have discussed partisan polarization and aversive or negative partisanship.

Daniel Cox at American Storylines:gov

Trump's style of communicating is personal, frequently offensive, and constant. Trump's penchant for taking every criticism personally and responding in kind was a hallmark of his presidency. Many of Trump’s political communications are devoid of political information. Is it any wonder then that, for many young people, politics took on a different meaning than disagreements about the budget deficit? A 2020 survey found that nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of young women—and just about as many young men—agreed with the statement, “A person's political views say a lot about the kind of person they are.”

The antipathy young women feel towards Donald Trump has been well documented, but the strength of the aversion they feel towards him is less remarked upon. The typical way we measure feelings toward political figures is on a scale of very favorable to very unfavorable. Seventy-five percent of unmarried young women have a “very unfavorable” view of Trump. But this survey question does not adequately capture the visceral feelings of disgust many young women have for Trump. A 2016 AP poll found that a majority of young women said the term “sexist” described Trump.

Lost in the many news reports, interviews, and poll questions about dating is that much of the objection young women have to Trump is not political, but personal. We found that a majority (55 percent) of young women would be less likely to date a Trump supporter, but far fewer (39 percent) say the same about the possibility of dating a Republican. The gap is even larger among young women with a college degree: more than three-quarters (76 percent) say they would be less inclined to date a Trump supporter.

Women Trend Leftward

Lydia Saad at Gallup:

In contrast to Americans’ party ID, which has swung from years of strong Democratic advantages to years of partisan parity or slight Republican leads, their political ideology has been more consistent. From the start of Gallup’s regular measurement of ideology in 1992, the largest segments have been conservative and moderate, while liberals have constituted the smallest group. However, within that framework, the increase in the percentage identifying as liberal, from 17% in 1992 to 25% today, is notable.

The trend in ideology by age group within each gender shows that this increased liberalism is largely the result of stronger-than-average pro-liberal shifts among 18- to 29-year-old women and women aged 65 and older. The former represents fundamental differences in the belief systems of women entering adulthood in the past decade versus in prior decades. By contrast, the change among senior women may be more about generational replacement, with formerly middle-aged women bringing their slightly more liberal attitudes into their golden years.

Meanwhile, the politics of men have either become slightly more liberal (as seen with the 30-to-49 and 65-and-older age groups) or haven’t changed (as with adults aged 18 to 29 and 50 to 64).

Thus, a widening of the ideological gaps between men and women over time has been due to women becoming more liberal at a faster rate than men, rather than women and men moving in different ideological directions.

Women in Congress

A number of posts have discussed the growing number of women in office.

 Katherine Schaeffer at Pew:

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Women in the U.S. Senate, 1965-2023

% of U.S. senators who are women

Note: Percentages are the share of women senators at the outset of each term of Congress.

Source: Pew Research Center analysis of Congressional Biographical Directory data.

PEW RESEARCH CENTER

At the start of the 118th Congress in 2023, there were 25 women serving in the U.S. Senate, just shy of the record 26 women senators sworn in on the first day of the previous Congress. (The count for the previous Congress includes Vice President Kamala Harris and former Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler. Both were sworn in on the first day and left the Senate shortly after.)

Of the 25 women senators:

• 16 are Democrats and nine are Republicans.
• 22 are White, two are Asian American and one is Hispanic. No Black women currently serve in the Senate, nor do any American Indian or Alaska Native women.

The first-ever woman in the Senate was Rebecca Latimer Felton, D-Ga., who was appointed to the seat as a political maneuver in 1922 and served just one day. Nancy Kassebaum, R-Kan., who served in the Senate from 1978 to 1997, was the first woman senator who was elected for a full term without having a spousal connection to Congress.

U.S. House

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Women in the U.S. House, 1965-2023

% of U.S. representatives who are women

Note: Percentages are the share of women representatives at the outset of each term of Congress.

Source: Pew Research Center analysis of Congressional Biographical Directory data.

PEW RESEARCH CENTER

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On the first day of the 118th Congress, 124 women were voting members in the House of Representatives, making up 28% of the chamber’s voting membership. In addition, four women serve as nonvoting delegates to Congress, representing American Samoa, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Of the women voting representatives sworn in on the first day of the session:

• 91 are Democrats and 33 are Republicans.
• 26 are Black, 18 are Hispanic, seven are Asian American, two are Native American and one is multiracial.

Jeannette Rankin, R-Mont., was the first woman to be elected to Congress, taking office in 1917. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is the only woman to have served as speaker of the House. She was speaker from 2007 to 2011, served as the minority leader in the Republican-controlled House from 2011 to 2019 and was elected speaker again from 2019 to 2023.

Dianne Feinstein, RIP

 President Biden:

Senator Dianne Feinstein was a pioneering American. A true trailblazer. And for Jill and me, a cherished friend.

In San Francisco, she showed enormous poise and courage in the wake of tragedy, and became a powerful voice for American values. Serving in the Senate together for more than 15 years, I had a front row seat to what Dianne was able to accomplish. It’s why I recruited her to serve on the Judiciary Committee when I was Chairman – I knew what she was made of, and I wanted her on our team. There’s no better example of her skillful legislating and sheer force of will than when she turned passion into purpose, and led the fight to ban assault weapons. Dianne made her mark on everything from national security to the environment to protecting civil liberties. She’s made history in so many ways, and our country will benefit from her legacy for generations.

Often the only woman in the room, Dianne was a role model for so many Americans – a job she took seriously by mentoring countless public servants, many of whom now serve in my Administration. She had an immense impact on younger female leaders for whom she generously opened doors. Dianne was tough, sharp, always prepared, and never pulled a punch, but she was also a kind and loyal friend, and that’s what Jill and I will miss the most.

As we mourn with her daughter Katherine and the Feinstein family, her team in the Senate, and the people of California, we take comfort that Dianne is reunited again with her beloved Richard. May God Bless Dianne Feinstein.

Lauren Underwood: The Personal Cost of Public Service

 At WP, Ruby Cramer has a remarkable portrait of Rep. Lauren Underwood  (D-IL):   (h/t Cheryl Bonner)

Was this what she signed up for?

Not exactly. But Lauren Underwood was here to do the job, and today, on a Friday at 11 p.m., the job was to sit in the House chamber and to wait, alert, present, attentive, for her name to be called near the end of the alphabet. So that’s what she did. She had her navy-blue blanket draped over her legs. She had cough drops and hard candy in her bag. Underwood came 405th in line, about 40 minutes into each roll call, after four Johnsons, four Smiths, three Thompsons and two Torreses. Fourteen rounds of votes and still no speaker of the House. Four days of anxiety and confusion, waiting to be sworn in. It occurred to her early on that week that the world was watching, and that Congress was not exactly putting its best foot forward. There was a grimness haunting the place. It was not a happy scene. Underwood scrolled through text messages on her phone. Across the aisle sat the new Republican majority. She heard murmurs. Then she heard yelling. The word “combustible” came to mind. She turned and saw two colleagues about to lay hands on one another — an almost-fight breaking out in the House chamber. Was she surprised? After four years in this job, no, not really. She looked back down at her phone and fired off a skull emoji to her sister. One more vote and then she could begin her third term in Congress.

...

 But she was 36 years old now. She was single. She wanted kids. She dated, but life with a member of Congress, she knew, was “not for everyone.” Like a lot of women, she had mapped out what it would mean to raise a child on her own. She had researched the costs of fertility treatments, the timeline she’d need to follow, the financial reality of paying for full-time child care on top of not just one home, in Illinois, but also an apartment in Washington, on a salary of $174,000. Like a lot of women her age, Underwood said, she had health complications that put her “firmly, permanently,” in a “high, high, high risk category” for pregnancy. She knew all the data, all the risks, in part because she had made Black maternal health her signature legislation in Congress. Like a lot of women, Underwood had made sacrifices for her work.

Women in Congress 2023

 Rebecca Leppert and Drew DeSilver at Pew:

Women make up more than a quarter (28%) of all members of the 118th Congress – the highest percentage in U.S. history and a considerable increase from where things stood even a decade ago.

Counting both the House of Representatives and the Senate, women account for 153 of 540 voting and nonvoting members of Congress. That represents a 59% increase from the 96 women who were serving in the 112th Congress a decade ago, though it remains far below women’s share of the overall U.S. population. A record 128 women are serving in the newly elected House, accounting for 29% of the chamber’s total. In the Senate, women hold 25 of 100 seats, tying the record number they held in the 116th Congress.

The 2022 midterm elections sent nearly two dozen new congresswomen to the House, including Becca Balint, a Vermont Democrat who became both the first woman and openly LGBTQ person elected to Congress from the state. Of the 22 freshman representatives who are women, 15 are Democrats and seven are Republicans.

The Senate gained just one new female member: Republican Katie Britt, who became the first woman senator from Alabama.

Many female incumbents who sought reelection this midterm cycle – 105 representatives and all five senators – kept their seats. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, who first joined the House in 1983, retained her title as the longest-serving congresswoman in the chamber. California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who’s served in Congress for 35 years and became the first female speaker of the House in 2007, also won reelection. But she announced she wouldn’t run for another leadership role after Republicans flipped control of the House.

Women make up a much larger share of congressional Democrats (41%) than Republicans (16%). Across both chambers, there are 109 Democratic women and 44 Republican women in the new Congress. Women account for 43% of House Democrats and 31% of Senate Democrats, compared with 16% of House Republicans and 18% of Senate Republicans. Still, the number of GOP women in the House is at its highest total yet: 35, up from 30 in January 2021, when the 117th Congress began.

Men, Women, Guns

 Megan Brenan at Gallup:

• U.S. men roughly twice as likely as U.S. women to own a gun, 43% vs. 22%
• 62% of women, 51% of men feel gun laws should be made stricter
• Gender gap in gun-law preferences persists despite gun ownership status

Men and women in the U.S. differ starkly in their propensity to own a gun and their preferences for the nation’s gun laws. Gallup’s trends show that gun ownership among men has consistently been at least double that of women, and women are much more supportive than men of stricter gun laws.

College Gender Gap

Douglas Belkin at WSJ:

At the close of the 2020-21 academic year, women made up 59.5% of college students, an all-time high, and men 40.5%, according to enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit research group. U.S. colleges and universities had 1.5 million fewer students compared with five years ago, and men accounted for 71% of the decline.

This education gap, which holds at both two- and four-year colleges, has been slowly widening for 40 years. The divergence increases at graduation: After six years of college, 65% of women in the U.S. who started a four-year university in 2012 received diplomas by 2018 compared with 59% of men during the same period, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

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 The college gender gap cuts across race, geography and economic background. For the most part, white men—once the predominant group on American campuses—no longer hold a statistical edge in enrollment rates, said Mr. Mortenson, of the Pell Institute. Enrollment rates for poor and working-class white men are lower than those of young Black, Latino and Asian men from the same economic backgrounds, according to an analysis of census data by the Pell Institute for the Journal.

Vice President Harris and Demographic Trends

 Kim Parker and Amanda Barroso at Pew note that Vice President Kamala Harris embodies several demographic trends:

Harris has a multiracial background. Her mother was South Asian and her father is Black. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Americans who identify as two or more races are one of the fastest growing racial or ethnic groups in the country, along with Asians. Roughly 6.3 million American adults – 2.5% of the adult population – identified as being more than one race in 2019. The number has grown significantly since the census first allowed people to choose more than one racial category to describe themselves in 2000. Among adults who identify as more than one race, relatively few (2.1%) are Black and Asian.
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Harris is the daughter of two immigrants, one from India and one from Jamaica. The share of immigrants from Asia living in the U.S. has been on the rise in recent decades, following the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. In 2018, Asians made up 28% of the U.S. foreign-born population, up from 4% in 1960. And starting as early as 2010, Asian immigrants outnumbered Hispanic immigrants among new arrivals.

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Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, is White, which makes them – as a couple – part of a growing group of intermarried couples. In 2019, 11% of all married U.S. adults had a spouse who was a different race or ethnicity from them, up from 3% in 1967. Among newlyweds in 2019, roughly one-in-five (19%) were intermarried.
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When she married Emhoff – who is divorced and has two children from his previous marriage – Harris became part of a blended family. The American family has evolved considerably in recent decades, and today there is no typical “family.” In 1980, most children younger than 18 lived in a household with two married parents who were in their first marriage. By 2014, fewer than half of U.S. children lived in that type of household. Some 15% lived with parents in a remarriage, 7% lived with cohabiting parents and 26% lived with an unpartnered parent.
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Harris does not have any biological children of her own. A look at U.S. women at the end of their childbearing years reveals that 15% were childless in 2014, while the majority (85%) had given birth to at least one child. The childlessness rate was down from 20% in 2005 but still higher than the rate prior to the 1990s.
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Harris married when she was 49 years old, and while this is older than the median age at first marriage, it reflects a trend toward women and men waiting longer to get married. In 2020, the U.S. had its highest median age at first marriage on record – 28.1 for women and 30.5 for men. These numbers have crept up steadily over time. In 2000, the median age at first marriage was 25.1 for women and 26.8 for men. In 1980, the median ages were 22.0 for women and 24.7 for men.
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Harris and Emhoff are among a growing share of married adults whose spouse does not share their religion. Harris is Christian and attends a Baptist church, and Emhoff is Jewish. While most married adults in the U.S. have a spouse who is the same religion as them, that has become less common in recent decades. Among adults who were married before 1960 (and are still married), only 19% have a spouse who does not share their religion. For those married in the 1980s and ’90s, 30% are in an interfaith marriage. The share has continued to rise: 39% of adults who were married between 2010 and 2014 have a spouse who identifies with a different religious group than their own.

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Before becoming the first female vice president, Harris served as a U.S. senator. Elected in 2016, Harris joined 20 other women in the U.S. Senate in 2017. This marked a historic high for women; the number rose to 25 in 2019. Now, the Senate has 24 female members, including one Latina woman and two who are Asian-Pacific Islander. There are no Black women currently serving in the Senate. In the House of Representatives, women make up 27.3% of current members. This represents a historic high for that chamber.

Women in Congress

Many posts have discussed women in politics.

Carrie Elizabeth Blazina and Drew DeSilver at Pew:

Counting both the House of Representatives and the Senate, 144 of 539 seats – or 27% – are held by women. That represents a 50% increase from the 96 women who were serving in the 112th Congress a decade ago, though it remains far below the female share of the overall U.S. population. A record 120 women are serving in the newly elected House, accounting for 27% of the total. In the Senate, women hold 24 of 100 seats, one fewer than the record number of seats they held in the last Congress.

This analysis counts voting as well as nonvoting members of Congress. Figures for the 117th Congress exclude two House seats that were vacant as of early January. It also excludes Sens. Kamala Harris, who is expected to resign her seat ahead of her inauguration as vice president on Jan. 20, and Kelly Loeffler, who lost a runoff election in Georgia earlier this month. Both are set to be replaced by men.
How we did this

Women make up a much bigger share of congressional Democrats (38%) than Republicans (14%). Across both chambers, there are 106 Democratic women and 38 Republican women in the new Congress. Women account for 40% of House Democrats and 32% of Senate Democrats, compared with 14% of House Republicans and 16% of Senate Republicans.

The 2020 general election sent just one new congresswoman to the Senate, Republican Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, making her the first female senator to represent that state.

Republican women made significant gains in the House in the most recent election cycle. Of the 27 newly elected representatives who are women, two-thirds (18) are Republicans. Between the 115th and 116th Congresses, the number of GOP women in the House fell from 25 to 15. That number doubled this year to 30, the highest total ever.

California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat and the first female speaker of the House, is serving her fourth term as speaker after being reelected earlier this month.

The partisan gender division hasn’t always looked this way. Until the 1929 stock market crash, most of the dozen women elected to the House were Republicans, and for several decades afterward the two parties were generally close in numbers in that chamber. But the gap widened in the 1970s and has persisted, despite a temporary narrowing during the Reagan-Bush 1980s. Of the 232 women elected to the House in 1992 or later, 157 (68%) have been Democrats, as have 27 of the 42 women (64%) who have served in the Senate since 1992.

Women Candidates in 2020

 Stacy Montemayor and Pete Quist, National Institute on Money in Politics; Karl Evers-Hillstrom and Grace Haley, Center for Responsive Politics, | 2020-12-21

Key findings:

• Between 2016 and 2020, the percentage of women candidates in gubernatorial and state legislative races saw a massive jump, from 25 percent to 32 percent.
• At least 142 women will hold seats in the next Congress, an all-time high mark.
• In 2020 races for the U.S. House and Senate, women candidates outraised men on average, while also nearly closing the gap in state-level contests.
• In 2020 races, women accounted for 33 percent of donations to congressional candidates and 31 percent of donations to state-level candidates, both record marks.

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Republican women also made gains in state races, though they were less pronounced. Women made up nearly 23 percent of 2020 Republican candidates, up from 18 percent in 2016. The biggest jump came from non-incumbent Republicans. In 2016, nearly 19 percent of Republican challengers were women. That figure jumped to 27 percent in this year’s elections.

Figure 2: Women candidates in 2020 state races, by party

Women candidates generally won at the same rate at which they ran at the state level. In 2020, 32 percent of all candidates for state legislative and gubernatorial seats were women, and 32 percent of the general election winners were women. In the 2016 and 2012 election cycles, women only accounted for 26 percent of general election winners.

Gender parity at the state level is still a ways off despite modest gains. Nevada remains the only state in the nation with a majority-female legislature. The vast majority of leadership positions in state legislatures are held by men. Just seven women serve as speakers of state houses, and nine women currently serve as governors.