Why Does Education Increase Voting? Evidence from Boston's Charter Schools / Sarah Cohodes, James J. Feigenbaum.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cohodes, Sarah.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Feigenbaum, James J.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w29308.

NBER working paper series no. w29308

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2021.

Summary:

In the United States, people with more education vote more. But, we know little about why education increases political participation or whether higher-quality education increases civic participation. We study applicants to Boston charter schools, using school lotteries to estimate charter attendance impacts for academic and voting outcomes. First, we confirm large academic gains for students in the sample of charter schools and cohorts investigated here. Second, we find that charter attendance boosts voter participation. Voting in the first presidential election after a student turns 18 increased substantially, by six percentage points from a base of 36 percent. The voting effect is driven entirely by girls and there is no increase in voter registration. Rich data and the differential effects by gender enable us to explore multiple potential channels for the voting impact. We find evidence that charter schools increase voting by increasing students' noncognitive skills.

Notes:

Print version record

September 2021.