Accounting for the Age Gap in Turnout

The Political Participation of Older People in Europe

“…A little used technique is the analysis of internationally cross-sectional data to study agerelated effects (see for example De Graaf 1999;Rubenson et al 2004). The first reasoning in this direction was put forward in an article by Nie, Verba and Kim with regard to age and political participation:…”

One of Us: Multilevel Models Examining the Impact of Descriptive Representation on Civic Engagement

“…In addition, membership in politically salient youth organizations -that is, service organizations, student council, drama clubs, musical groups, and religious organizations -is associated with higher levels of adult political participation (McFarland and Thomas 2006). This may overcome the lack of political information and interest reported by many young people, which when introduced as a statistical control, eliminates the age gap in voter turnout (Rubenson et al 2004). These findings indicate that conscious efforts to appeal to voters when they are young may set in motion a trend toward increased civic engagement over the course of the lifecycle.…”

Political involvement and democracy : how benign is the future of post-industrial politics?

“…Despite the increased possibilities for education and the high exposure to political information, young people in post-industrial countries have been found to be less interested in politics than older generations (Blais et al 2002;Rubenson et al 2004). A paradox which is quite similar to the puzzle of political participation (see chapter 3) can be seen here: young people should be more interested in politics due to higher levels of education.…”

“…Research findings show that the decline in participation forms such as party membership and campaign activities is most common among the younger generations (Rubenson et al 2004;Blais 2006;Dalton 2006). In various countries, the youth sections of political parties, which have once been important recruitment channels for young citizens into party politics, are "rapidly losing their members and are almost on the brink of disappearing" (Hooghe 2004: 332, see also Hooghe et al 2004).…”

“…Besides the tendency of the better educated to utilize alternative forms of participation, the decline in turnout has also been caused by generational replacement, which means that the youngest members of the electorate are increasingly turning away from voting at elections (Miller & Shanks 1996;Lyons & Alexander 2000;Putnam 2000Putnam , 2002Blais et al 2002;Franklin 2004;Rubenson et al 2004). These studies have found clear trends in rates of non-voting among younger generations, particularly for those born after 1970.…”