TY - JOUR
T1 - Families, divorce and voter turnout in the US
AU - Sandell, Julianna
AU - Plutzer, Eric
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments. The authors gratefully acknowledge that this research was supported by a grant from The Russell Sage Foundation and we thank three anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions. Of course, all conclusions and interpretations are that of the authors.
PY - 2005/6
Y1 - 2005/6
N2 - How large a role does the family play in civic development? This paper examines an important aspect of family influence by tracing the impact of divorce on voter turnout during adolescence. We show that the effect of divorce among white families is large, depressing turnout by nearly 10 percentage points. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, we demonstrate that the impact of divorce varies by racial group and can rival the impact of parents' educational attainment, which is generally regarded as the most important non-political characteristic of one's family of origin. We attempt to explain the divorce effect by examining the mediating impacts of parental voter turnout, active social learning, income loss, child-parent interaction, residential mobility, and educational attainment.
AB - How large a role does the family play in civic development? This paper examines an important aspect of family influence by tracing the impact of divorce on voter turnout during adolescence. We show that the effect of divorce among white families is large, depressing turnout by nearly 10 percentage points. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, we demonstrate that the impact of divorce varies by racial group and can rival the impact of parents' educational attainment, which is generally regarded as the most important non-political characteristic of one's family of origin. We attempt to explain the divorce effect by examining the mediating impacts of parental voter turnout, active social learning, income loss, child-parent interaction, residential mobility, and educational attainment.
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U2 - 10.1007/s11109-005-3341-9
DO - 10.1007/s11109-005-3341-9
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:18844389000
SN - 0190-9320
VL - 27
SP - 133
EP - 162
JO - Political Behavior
JF - Political Behavior
IS - 2
ER -