Growing Up Poor: A Lifelong Sentence of Political Alienation?

This paper explores the relationship between childhood poverty and political participation, both of which have known to be inherited across generation. The study examines the influence of childhood poverty and political socialization during ages 0-12. Childhood poverty has a significant impact on people's living conditions, access to education and cultural participation, as well as health issues. The paper argues that being poor influences not only adults, but also children, who might be exposed to more mental stress in earlier years than their peers from non-poor families. This stress might also affect their capacity to form a political identity during youth and young adulthood. The paper analyzes first-time voters, since this age has often found to be deeply formative for long-term levels of political participation. Nevertheless, there might be no direct effect of poverty on participation, and the relationship takes place through respondents’ self-evaluation of their financial situation. It might be that people are poor “from the outside”, but view themselves as faring well financially and the respective political (non-)action comes from a more personal place. This paper uses data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) spanning from 1984-2020. The dependent variable political participation is measured two-fold: first, turnout in national elections in 2009, 2013, and 2017 is analyzed. Second, political engagement counts as time spent on political activities. Both variants of political participation are analyzed among first-time voters. The caregivers' information of monthly family income is used to measure poverty by comparing it with the respective poverty line. This approach ensures high reliability of the measurement, since respondents provide up-to-date information about their current income. The panel data structure allows for tracking children into adulthood and observing their political engagement. Furthermore, data on respondents’ self-evaluation of their financial situation (personal and household level) as well as economic worry are included. The study controls for gender, migration background and parental political participation. It utilizes an ordered probit regression analysis with different models. Preliminary results indicate that experiencing poverty for at least one year is negatively associated with participating in national elections. Furthermore, higher education and politically active parents significantly increase the likelihood of voting and engaging in political activities among first-time voters. If poverty has a direct effect on political participation, the effect should remain stable. If respondents act more on personal desires, the personal assessment of their financial situation should have a significant effect.