Matthew Yglesias reports that the Harvard class of 2003 has gotten more liberal over the last five years. I have the 15th reunion survey of the class of 1993 in hand, and it’s the same with us: of the 467 respondents, 42% describe themselves as “liberal” or “extremely liberal,” up from 34% in 2003. I’d like to see the figures for 1998 — it’s not clear whether our class is actually drifting steadily to the left, or just dislikes the current President in sync with the rest of the country.
The poll was taken early in election season, when Clinton was down in the primaries but not out of the running. A big plurality of the class, 59%, back Barack Obama, with 16% liking Clinton and 15% for McCain; pretty much identical with the figures Yglesias gives for our 5th reunion counterparts.
Most surprising results: 7.3% of male respondents say they’ve paid for sex. 39% of men with children have spouses staying home full-time. 25% of all alums are married to another Harvard grad. Lawyers are much less happy than other people. OK, maybe that last one isn’t so surprising.
39%? Wow.
Only 12% of our women classmates with kids are full-time at home, by the way.
If 7.3% of males have paid for sex, then shouldn’t you at least double that to account for lying?
Also, how many men were in your class? Just curious.
The survey got a little over 500 respondents, of whom 58% were male — the actual proportion of men in our class was somewhat closer to half.