Twice the trouble: Twinning and the cost of voting
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Twice the trouble : Twinning and the cost of voting. / Dahlgaard, Jens Olav; Hansen, Kasper M.
I: Journal of Politics, Bind 83, Nr. 3, 2021, s. 1173-1177.Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › fagfællebedømt
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Twice the trouble
T2 - Twinning and the cost of voting
AU - Dahlgaard, Jens Olav
AU - Hansen, Kasper M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the Southern Political Science Association. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Scholars have argued that becoming a parent affects political behavior, including turnout. In this article, we identify the effect on turnout of having an additional child conditional on the decision to become a parent. When parents have a child, nature sometimes assigns additional children through twinning. We argue that conditional on age of parents and birth cohort this as-if randomly assigns an extra child to some parents. With a large data set of family composition and validated turnout for Danish voters, we find, consistent with additional children taking up parents’ time and indirectly increasing the cost of voting, that having an additional child at the same time as another depresses turnout for both parents. Mothers who had twins in their first parity are 1.6 to 3.0 percentage points less likely to vote across three elections. For fathers, turnout is only depressed by 0.7 to 1.4 percentage points.
AB - Scholars have argued that becoming a parent affects political behavior, including turnout. In this article, we identify the effect on turnout of having an additional child conditional on the decision to become a parent. When parents have a child, nature sometimes assigns additional children through twinning. We argue that conditional on age of parents and birth cohort this as-if randomly assigns an extra child to some parents. With a large data set of family composition and validated turnout for Danish voters, we find, consistent with additional children taking up parents’ time and indirectly increasing the cost of voting, that having an additional child at the same time as another depresses turnout for both parents. Mothers who had twins in their first parity are 1.6 to 3.0 percentage points less likely to vote across three elections. For fathers, turnout is only depressed by 0.7 to 1.4 percentage points.
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85105987415
VL - 83
SP - 1173
EP - 1177
JO - Journal of Politics
JF - Journal of Politics
SN - 0022-3816
IS - 3
ER -
ID: 233720302