The cultural divide is real, and it’s huge. Americans live such different lives that what we buy, do or watch can be used to predict our politics, race, income, education and gender — sometimes with more than 90 percent accuracy.
It turns out that people are separated not just by gun ownership, religion and their beliefs on affirmative action — but also by English muffins, flashlights and mustard.
To prove it, University of Chicago economists Marianne Bertrand and Emir Kamenica taught machines to guess a person’s income, political ideology, race, education and gender based on either their media habits, their consumer behavior, their social and political beliefs, and even how they spent their time. Their results were released in a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research. CONT.
Andrew Van Dam, Washington Post