An Emerging Age Cleavage?

• In Event: New Voting Patterns? Generational Shifts in Vote Choice

Abstract

It is by now well established that party systems and voting behaviour across established democracies is fundamentally changing. These changes have been linked to change in the cleavages that drive voting behaviour but one potential cleavage has received comparatively little empirical scrutiny is that of a growing age divide in voting behaviour.
Scholars have drawn attention to fairly large differences in how the young and older citizens voted in a number of recent elections. In contrast, systematic and comparative analyses of age differences how age effects fluctuate over time are largely missing from the literature. To the best of our knowledge, O’Grady (2023) constitutes the most comprehensive attempt to study the emergence of an age divide comparatively but its geographical scope is limited to Europe, meaning several cases that seem to be undergoing important change are not considered (notably, the United States, Australia, and Canada). Second, by focusing on ideology as an outcome measure, O’Grady’s analysis does not shed light on the extent to which the age differences in citizens’ political preferences affect their vote choice, and in this way influence the policies that are pursued across established democracies. The goal of this research project is to address these important limitations in previous work and to shed light on the presence and strength of the age cleavage across established democracies. In a more exploratory fashion, we will also examine whether contextual factors moderate the size of the age cleavage, with particular attention for the role of electoral systems and party system size.

Authors

• Ruth Dassonneville, Universite de Montreal

• Ian McAllister, Australian National University