From Generation to Generation: The Role of Grandparents in the Intergenerational Transmission of (Non-)Voting

• Published date: 01 December 2021
• Author: Jani Erola,Hanna Wass,Elisabeth Gidengil,Hannu Lahtinen
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912920971715
• Date: 01 December 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

2021, Vol. 74(4) 1137 –1151

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912920971715

Political Research Quarterly

© 2020 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912920971715

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Introduction

Just as social and economic disadvantage can be passed

from generation to generation, so too can political disad-

vantage. Brady, Schlozman, and Verba (2015) use the

term “political reproduction” to denote the intergenera-

tional transmission of unequal participation in politics.

Linking political reproduction to social reproduction,

they argue that parental socioeconomic disadvantage is

the source of political disadvantage in the next generation

(see also Schlozman, Verba, and Brady 2012; Verba,

Burns, and Schlozman 2003; Verba, Schlozman, and

Burns 2005). However, the transmission of social status

is only one mechanism underlying the reproduction of

political inequality; behavioral tendencies can also be

transmitted from one generation to another. The political

socialization literature has emphasized the role of social

learning as a result of verbal and behavioral modeling. If

parents disparage politics and are politically inactive,

their children are likely to grow up to be similarly inac-

tive as adults (Gidengil, Wass, and Valaste 2016).

Both the status transmission and political socialization

streams of research have typically focused on the parent–

child link. Other intergenerational pathways have been

largely overlooked, despite the fact that Beck and

Jennings (1975, 83) observed almost half a century ago

that “socialization within the family is not simply a two-

generation phenomenon.” However, their study remains

one of the few to extend the study of political socializa-

tion to the grandparental generation. There are good rea-

sons to expect that grandparents can influence the political

activity of their adult grandchildren through processes of

both status transmission and social learning. Drawing on

the burgeoning literature on the transmission of social

class and education across three generations (see, for

example, Chan and Boliver 2013, 2014; Coall and

Hertwig 2011; Erola and Moisio 2007; Mare 2011;

Warren and Hauser 1997; for an extensive review of the

literature on education, see Anderson, Sheppard, and

Monden 2018) and the intergenerational transmission of

971715PRQXXX10.1177/1065912920971715Political Research QuarterlyGidengil et al.

research-article2020

1McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

2University of Helsinki, Finland

3University of Turku, Finland

Corresponding Author:

Hanna Wass, Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of

Helsinki, P.O. Box 54, 00014 Helsinki, Finland.

Email: hanna.wass@helsinki.fi

From Generation to Generation: The Role

of Grandparents in the Intergenerational

Transmission of (Non-)Voting

Elisabeth Gidengil1, Hannu Lahtinen2, Hanna Wass2,

and Jani Erola3

Abstract

The literature on the reproduction of political participation across generations has focused almost exclusively on

parental effects. Yet, other family members may plausibly play an important role as well. This study explores the role

of grandparents in the intergenerational transmission of the propensity to vote. Grandparental effects are theorized in

terms of both social learning and status transmission. The analysis takes advantage of a unique dataset that links official

turnout data for grandparents, parents, and adult grandchildren with demographic and socioeconomic information from

administrative sources. Even controlling for a variety of status-related characteristics, grandchildren are significantly

less likely to vote when their grandparents are non-voters. The association between grandparental turnout and the

turnout of their adult grandchildren is only partly explained by the mediating effect of parental turnout. Having non-

voting grandparents appears to reinforce the effect of having parents who do not vote and may even offset the effects

of having parents who are both voters. These results suggest that it is time to take the role of grandparents seriously

if we want to understand how political disadvantage is transmitted across generations.

Keywords

turnout, grandparents, intergenerational transmission, three-generational patterns, social learning, political socialization

Article