Where Else Does Turnout Decline Come From? Education, Age, Generation and Period Effects in Three European Countries

Abstract

Recent research has found that voter turnout is declining in most advanced industrial countries. The trend is driven by generational replacement because the age cohorts that entered the electorate at the end of the twentieth century are voting at lower than expected rates. In North American countries, the decline is also concentrated among the poorly educated. This article examines the relative contribution of period, life‐cycle, generational and educational effects on changes in electoral participation over the last four decades in Sweden, Norway and Germany with individual‐level data. Turnout decline is partly driven by generational change in the countries observed as the literature suggests. Additionally, there is also a clear socio‐economic correlate. Most strikingly, poorly educated persons of all age groups are increasingly failing to vote in Germany. The results suggest that the causes of the long‐term evolution are multidimensional and the relative consequences vary across countries. The debate about turnout decline and its possible remedies has to take into account the fact that both members of new generations and citizens with low education attainment are the main targets of measures aimed at increasing turnout rates, but different actions might be required to attract each specific demographic group to the polls.