Family Income and the Intergenerational Transmission of Voting Behavior: Evidence from an Income Intervention / Randall Akee, William Copeland, E. Jane Costello, John B. Holbein, Emilia Simeonova.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Akee, Randall.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Copeland, William.

Costello, E. Jane.

Holbein, John B.

Simeonova, Emilia.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w24770.

NBER working paper series no. w24770

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Family Income and the Intergenerational Transmission of Voting Behavior

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2018.

Summary:

Despite clear evidence of an income gradient in political participation, research has not been able to isolate the effects of income on voting from other household characteristics. We investigate how exogenous unconditional cash transfers affected voting in US elections across two generations from the same household. The results confirm that there is strong inter-generational correlation in voting across parents and their children. We also show--consistent with theory--that household receipt of unconditional cash transfers has heterogeneous effects on the civic participation of children coming from different socio-economic backgrounds. It increases children's voting propensity in adulthood among those raised in initially poorer families. However, income transfers have no effect on parents, regardless of initial income levels. These results suggest that family circumstance during childhood--income in particular--plays a role in influencing levels of political participation in the United States. Further, in the absence of outside shocks, income differences are transmitted across generations and likely contribute to the intergenerational transmission of social and political inequality.

Notes:

Print version record

June 2018.