Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/235219 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research No. 1129
Publisher: 
Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW), Berlin
Abstract: 
The income gradient in political participation is a widely accepted stylized fact. This article asks how income effects on political involvement unfold over time. Using nine panel datasets from six countries, it analyzes whether income changes have short-term effects on political involvement, whether effects vary across the life-cycle, and whether parental income has an independent influence. Irrespective of indicator, specification, and method (hybrid models, inclusion of lags and leads, error-correction models), we find neither significant short-term effects of income changes nor life-cycle variation in these effects. However, parental income does seem to affect political socialization. Descriptive evidence and latent-growth-curve modeling based on household panels show that participatory inequality by parental income is already large before voting age. Poorer voters do not catch up with their richer peers in their twenties. This implies an urgent need for research on (political) inequality in youth and childhood.
Subjects: 
Participation
political inequality
panel data
socialization
income
JEL: 
C23
D31
D72
D91
P16
Z13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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