Social origin and political participation: does education compensate or reinforce family (dis)advantages?

Abstract

Previous research has shown a consistent effect of social origin on political participation: people originating from low-socioeconomic-status families participate in politics less than people from high-socioeconomic-status families, – which violates the democratic premise and one of the most fundamental human rights – equality of political voice. We investigated in this paper whether education compensates or reinforces the political inequality shaped by social origin. We used a German representative sample of 1,046 identical twins of 21-25 years old and applied family fixed effects regression models, which allowed to control for measured and unmeasured genetic and social confounding. We found a positive causal effect of educational attainment on participation. Family disadvantage caused by low parental education is compensated by children obtaining intermediate or high levels of education. At the same time, family advantage originating from high parental occupational status is reinforced for children completing gymnasium. We found no (dis)advantage, compensation or reinforcement related to parental income. We conclude that compensation and reinforcement of family disadvantage may remain unnoticed if components of parental SES are not distinguished.