Well-Being and Political Participation in Ageing Populations

This paper investigates how well-being among older people (65 years and older) affect their political participation levels and to what extent the well-established relationships between resources/motivation and political participation is moderated by the level of well-being. The research question is motivated by the challenges posed by the growing ageing populations in all advanced industrial societies coupled with a knowledge gap of what distinguishes active and passive citizens of older age. In much research, the determinants of political participation are presumed to be almost constant across the life-course. From the perspective that political participation often is lowest among the oldest and related empirical findings showing bigger participation differences within older age groups than in other age groups, this paper contributes with a more nuanced understanding of inequality in political participation among older people in Europe. To contribute to previous research, this paper combines political participation research together with the theory of capability developed by Sen and later also Nussbaum. Capability is often commonly understood as the functionings that makes life valuable to an individual and captures what people are effectively able to do and to be. From a capability perspective, well-being rather than subjective general health, becomes a more relevant determinant of political participation. Against this backdrop, this paper hypothesizes that well-being is positively related to political participation (H1) and that respondents with high level of education (H2) and political interest (H3) that also have high level of well-being will be associated will show even higher participation levels. To test the hypotheses, this paper uses data of approximately 9 000 respondents age 65 and older in 27 countries from the European Social Survey (ESS) in 2012. Well-being is measured using an index tapping feelings of attachment, security, role, enjoyment and control. Political participation is measured using an index of activities including contacting politicians, work in political party, organizational work, signing petitions and taken part in demonstrations. The models are tested using multi-level regression. The preliminary results indicate firstly that well-being affects levels of political participation among older people, that is, older people experiencing higher levels of well-being are also more active. Secondly, both education and interest in politics indeed more strongly affects levels of political participation among seniors with higher levels of capability. This means that among older individuals with low well-being, participation is low disregarding of degree of education or interest in politics, political. However, among older individuals with high well-being, differences in participation levels due to degree of education and interest in politics are substantial. In other words, well-being matters for political participation, but mostly so among the already resourceful and motivated. In conclusion, the findings lend support to the hypotheses by showing that well-being indeed is a relevant determinant of political participation and that well-being moderates the effect of education and political interest on political participation. More importantly, the latter finding implies that the overtime and across contexts robust effects of education and political interest on political participation are not valid for all older people in Europe.