Gendered Trickle-Up Political Socialization in Migrant and non-Migrant Families: Evidence from Finland

The profound social and political transformations in contemporary societies highlight the continued importance of studying political socialization. As Haegel (2020) notes, increased social and spatial mobility directly impacts political socialization by altering both the objective reality being communicated and the mechanisms of transmission. Occupational mobility and job insecurity are reshaping socio-political class identities and shifting the spaces and networks, such as workplaces, where political socialization has traditionally occurred. Social changes also extend into private life, with significant shifts in family structures and gender relations. Within families, both gender dynamics and the status of children have evolved, raising questions about the roles of mothers as agents of political socialization and the degree to which children play an active role as they internalize political realities. Similarly, migration adds complexity to the political content shared within migrant families, redefining the roles of socialization agents and sometimes strengthening the reversed process, where children influence the political socialization of their parents. This paper focuses on this reverse transmission process – trickle-up political socialization – in which children act as agents of political socialization toward their parents. Building on e.g. Bos et al. (2022), this study approaches the phenomenon from a gendered perspective, bridging the literature on gender and political socialization. We concentrate specifically on the mother-daughter link, acknowledging that women are still less frequently encouraged to participate in politics than men. When they are, they more often than men weigh the beliefs and reactions of others, both real and imagined, reflecting on how it may impact the lives of those close to them (e.g. Carroll and Sanbonmatsu 2013, 42–62). Our empirical data comes from a parent–child dyadic survey that we collect in Finland in spring 2025. This dataset will enable analysis of same- and different-gender parent-child pairs to examine whether trickle-up political socialization patterns are gendered. Specifically, we will investigate whether daughters more actively encourage their mothers, rather than their fathers, to engage in politics, and whether mothers, more than fathers, are receptive to their daughters' mobilization efforts – acknowledging that their daughters have encouraged them and perceiving that this encouragement has influenced their political interest. Additionally, we explore gendered political socialization within migrant families to test whether trickle-up political socialization from daughters to mothers is more pronounced in migrant families than in non-migrant families. For this aspect of the study, only data from adult children with migrant parents will be available. Sources: Bos, A. L., Greenlee, J. S., Holman, M. R., Oxley, Z. M., and Lay, J. C. (2022). This One’s for the Boys: How Gendered Political Socialization Limits Girls’ Political Ambition and Interest. American Political Science Review, 116(2), 484–501. Carroll, S. J. and Sanbonmatsu, K. (2013). More Women Can Run: Gender and Pathways to the State Legislatures. Oxford University Press. Haegel, F. (2020). Political Socialisation: Out of Purgatory? European Journal of Sociology, 61(3), 333–364.