Family Ties and Political Participation / Alberto F. Alesina, Paola Giuliano.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Alesina, Alberto F.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Giuliano, Paola.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w15415.

NBER working paper series no. w15415

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2009.

Summary:

We establish an inverse relationship between family ties and political participation, such that the more individuals rely on the family as a provider of services, insurance, transfer of resources, the lower is one's civic engagment and political participation. We also show that strong family ties appear to be a substitute for generalized trust, rather than a complement to it. These three constructs-civic engagement, political participation, and trust- are part of what is known as social capital; therefore, in this paper, we contribute to the investigation of the origin and evolution of social capital. We establish these results using within-country evidence and looking at the behavior of immigrants from various countries in 32 different destination places.

Notes:

Print version record

October 2009.