Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/339062 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
LEM Working Paper Series No. 2025/38
Publisher: 
Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Pisa
Abstract: 
Abstentionism represents one of the most evident failures of modern democracies. The root causes of the phenomenon are still quite difficult to understand. Why do people abstain? Because of lack of political offer or, rather, because of exclusion and marginalization? This paper addresses a potential root cause, linking political behavior at the ballot box to material conditions in Italy, over the period 1983-2018. Through the lens of a long-run structural analysis, conducting both non parametric and parametric estimates, we connect the emerging stratification of the Italian labor market into social classes and the rise in non-voting. Our empirical results give support to the prediction of Power Theory, according to which economic marginalization, here measured through social class divides, fosters political marginalization.
Subjects: 
Wage inequality
Workforce stratification
Social classes
Power Theory
JEL: 
D72
D62
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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