Childhood Social Class, Intergenerational Mobility and Voting

It is well established in the literature that parents are the principal agents in pre-adult political socialization (Hyman 1959). Numerous studies suggest that parents influence their offspring’s political orientations, although the magnitude of transmission from parent to child varies according to the type of political attitude and the level of political homogeneity between the parents, as well as contextual features like the general political climate and the party system (Abendschön 2013; Jennings et al. 2009; Urbatsch 2014). Furthermore, the contribution of parents in the political socialization process seems relatively stable over time (Corbetta et al. 2013). Although much of the transmission takes place though learning from parental behaviour, parental socioeconomic and political resources are also a noteworthy factor (Pacheco 2008, Pacheco and Plutzer 2008, Quintelier 2015; Verba et al. 2005). Brady et al. (2015) argue that political science is still in its infancy in understanding the intergenerational reproduction of political participation as it has almost exclusively concentrated on political socialization (i.e. learned psychological and behavioural patterns). In order to gain a deeper understanding on aspects such as intergenerational transmission of various types of resources and social networks, the authors recommended adopting strategies resembling those that are commonly used in the sociological research of social stratification. This approach thus highlights the role of occupation-based social class as an explanatory factor. However, although some prior knowledge on the intergenerational educational mobility and turnout exists, research on the relation between social class mobility and voting turnout has been remarkably scarce so far. In this study, we examine the extent to which an individual’s social class of origin influences an his/her voting propensity after establishing one’s own class position. Five research questions are addressed. First, to which degree childhood social class position accounts for the association between an adult’s social class and turnout? Second, what is the independent effect of social class of origin after adjusting for parental educational levels and a person’s own education and social class position? Third, are there gender differences in this association? Fourth, does social class mobility have an effect on voting as such, i.e. how does turnout among socially mobile individuals compare to those whose position has remained stable? Finally, to what extent the effect of childhood social class varies with age, namely could it be detected even among middle-aged and older voters? The analyses are based on individual-level register-based dataset from the 2015 Finnish parliamentary elections, including information on parental characteristics at the time of the 1999 parliamentary elections.