Aging and Conservatism: Cohort Changes in Attitudes About Legalized Abortion

Abstract

Cohort changes in attitudes about the availability of legal abortions are traced over a twelve year period using data from seven national surveys. Contrary to the aging-conservatism hypothesis, trends in the direction of increasingly favorable attitudes between 1965 and 1973 and general stability thereafter characterize all cohorts. On this issue, there is no evidence of growing conservatism, attitudinal rigidity, or change at a slower rate among the older cohorts.