It Runs in the Family: A Register-Based Analysis of Turnout Among Siblings

• In Event: Electoral Participation

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that parental socioeconomic status and voting influence electoral participation among their adult children. Our study takes one step forward by disentangling the relationship between family characteristics and comparing their mutual contribution on turnout in the 2015 Finnish parliamentary elections. The analyses are conducted using a unique dataset that combines official voting records with register-based data on siblings born in 1980–1989 and their parents (N=122,917 individuals in 104,642 families). Our results show that one fifth of the total variation in turnout is shared by siblings. Education and social class were roughly equally important, whereas the contribution of parental income was clearly smaller. Altogether, parental socioeconomic factors has the effect of essentially same size that than parental voting. Together these factors explain one third of intra-family variation. The impact of fraternal and maternal characteristics is close to equal. We conclude by underling the role of pre-adult family characteristic as a factor that causes lasting inequalities in voting.

Authors

• Hannu Lahtinen, University of Helsinki

• Jani Erola, University of Turku

• Hanna Wass, University of Helsinki