Abstract
This chapter examines the empirical relationship between age and voting behaviour and outlines the results of a multivariate and multi-level statistical analysis. In particular, it presents a general explanatory model taking into account ‘age effect’ and ‘cohort effect’ and outlines specific empirical models in order to answer the research question on the possible differences, if any, between youth and adults concerning the determinants of voting choices. Furthermore, the chapter examines the relationship between some independent variables and the youth voting for specific parties. In terms of overall results, the chapter finds that to understand voting choices the fact of being young is not important, but to have been young and therefore have been socialized to politics in a given historical period.
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Notes
- 1.
Selection discussed in Chap. 2.
- 2.
Survey data from the four waves carried out in 1981–84, 1989–93, 1994–99 and 1999–2004.
- 3.
The educational attainment, measured as age of attainment, is not normally distributed; hence, it has been transformed in its logarithm.
- 4.
Such dummies pinpoint the different surveys, for instance ‘France 1981’, ‘France 1990’ and ‘Italy 1981’. Thus, the effect of each electoral context can be controlled for.
- 5.
Actually, compared to the general model, another independent variable is no longer considered: education. This variable is in fact measured as the age when education was completed. Therefore, it is linked with the age variable and it would not make sense to include it in the youth sample, since not everyone has completed their school career and misleading outcomes would result. On the other hand, the independent variables for the youth and adult models are supposed to be the same, therefore such variable has been eliminated from the analysis.
- 6.
For this reason all significant coefficients are positive (except for the left–right distance): they should be interpreted as the R-squared in a multivariate model block.
- 7.
As regards these seven categories, see Chap. 3. The category representing the agricultural labourers has been omitted from the analysis, thus considering it as reference category.
- 8.
Before y-hat transformation, the original variable was a scale going from 1 (‘God is not at all important in my life’) to 10 (‘God is very important in my life’).
- 9.
To calculate the significance and the sign of the interactions I followed the method devised by Brambor et al. (2006). In a general model where y=dependent variable and Z=dummy independent variable, we obtain the following function:
$$y = {\beta ^0} + {\beta ^1}x + {\beta ^2}Z + {\beta ^3}xZ + \varepsilon $$((4.1))The standard error of the marginal effect of χ on у when Z=1 is:
$$\sigma = \partial {\mathop{\rm var}} ({\beta ^1}) + {Z^2}{\mathop{\rm var}} ({\beta ^2}) + 2Z{\mathop{\rm cov}} ({\beta ^1}{\beta ^3})$$((4.2))At this point if b=main effect and x=interaction term, in the event the constitutive terms (b and x) present different signs or one of the two is not significant, to establish significance and the sign of the marginal effect of χ on y when Z is 1, we have to calculate the minimum and maximum values:
$${\rm{Max = }}b{\rm{ + }}x + 1.96 \times \sigma $$((4.3))$${\rm{Min = }}b{\rm{ + }}x - 1.96 \times \sigma $$((4.4))If Min>0 and Max>0, then the interaction is positive and significant. If Min<0 and Max<0, then the interaction is negative and significant. If Min<0 and Max>0 (or the other way round), the interaction is not significant.
- 10.
Great Britain is the omitted category.
- 11.
The Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and the Schwarz or the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) are the criteria through which the goodness of fit of the youth and adult models (two with interactions and two without) can be detected. The youth model with interactions has improved compared to the model without interactions. This improvement in the youth model with interactions is slighter, while in the adult model with interactions is more pronounced. In the youth study, the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) has a lower, therefore better, value in the interaction model than in the non-interaction one. In particular, the interaction model has a lower AIC by 62 units compared to the non-interaction model: when a model has an AIC > 10 compared to the AIC of another model, the first one can be ruled out favouring the model with the lower AIC. Conversely, the Schwarz or the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) is slightly worse but compared to the AIC it is more sensitive to the increase in the number of the parameters, and therefore the AIC should be preferred to the BIC. In this regard, Burnham and Anderson (2002; 2004) and Yang (2005) compare the AIC and BIC criteria drawing the conclusion that the AIC offers theoretical and statistical advantages compared to the BIC. In the adult study, the improvement of the goodness of fit due to the interaction model is even more clear-cut. Here, both parameters improve: the AIC decreased by 229 units and the BIC by 71 units.
- 12.
In addition to these variables, I am also considering education that is significant in the general explanatory model (Table 4.1).
- 13.
For the definition criterion of these party categories see Table 4.6, note a. In the following lines, I provide the country-by-country full list of parties that present significant associations with variables listed in Table 4.6. France: Extreme Left, PCF (Left-wing); Radical Party of the Left, PS (Centre-Left); Démocratie Libérale, CDS (Centre); Parti Republicain, RPR, UDF (Centre-Right); environmentalist lists, Les Verts (Green). Great Britain: Labour Party (Centre-Left); Liberal-Democrats (Centre); Conservative Party (Centre-Right); British National Party (Right-wing); Green Party (Green). Italy: DP, PdUP, PCI, PdCI, PRC (Left-wing); PR, PRI, DS (Centre-Left); DC, CCD, PPI, Democratici (Centre); PLI, FI (Centre-Right); MSI, AN, LN (Right-wing); Verdi (Green); Lega Lombarda—Lombard League, Südtiroler Volkspartei—SVP, Union Valdôtaine—UV (Regionalist). Netherlands: SP (Left-wing); D66, PvdA (Centre-Left); CDA (Centre); VVD (Centre-Right); RPF, SGP (Right-wing); GroenLinks (Green). Spain: PCE, IU, IC (Left-wing); PSOE, PDNI (Centre-Left); CDS (Centre); UCD, PP (Centre-Right); AP in 1981 (Right-wing); Verdes (Green); BNG, ERC, HB, PA (Regionalist). Sweden: V (Left-wing); SAP (Centre-Left); C, KD (Centre); FP, M (Centre-Right); MP (Green).
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Maggini, N. (2017). The Explanatory Model: The Determinants of Youth Voting Choices. In: Young People’s Voting Behaviour in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59243-9_4
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