[SGCEE] Family Matters: How Concerns about the Financial Wellbeing of Younger Relatives Shape the Political Preferences of Older Adults

CEE's General Seminar

Sciences Po, 1 place Saint-Thomas d'Aquin, 75007 Paris & via Zoom

We derive a family-centred theory of electoral behaviour wherein older adults are willing to forego benefits to their own generation if they perceive younger family members to be struggling financially. Employing a large novel survey, multiple new family-centred survey items, analysis across policy domains and a survey experiment, we demonstrate support for our theory.  Negative evaluations of the financial wellbeing of younger family members – which are closely linked to objective economic circumstances – are associated with older adults being more likely to support ‘pro-youth’ policies, to forego spending on their own generation, and to vote against the incumbent.  These effects are not reducible to explicit self-interest motivations on behalf of older relatives themselves.  We argue that conventional self-interest assumptions require modification: people vote for the well-being of their close family members. The implications are important for understanding voter behaviour and the electoral incentives of politicians in an era of aging populations.

Speaker

Jane Green is a Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College and Professor of Political Science and British Politics at the University of Oxford (Nuffield College). She is the Director of the Nuffield Politics Research Centre, Co-Director of the British Election Study, and Elections Analyst for ITV News. She is author (with the British Election Study team), of 'Electoral Shocks: Understanding the Volatile Voter in a Turbulent World', OUP, and author, with Will Jennings, of 'The Politics of Competence: Parties, Public Opinion and Voters', CUP, 2017.

Discussant

Théodore Tallent, Sciences Po, CEE

Chair

Florence Faucher, Sciences Po, CEE