2020/03/09 by Dieter Stiers, Marc Hooghe, Ruth Dassonneville · 1 voice
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Fiscal Policies and Political Economy #Gender Politics and Representation
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/psrm.2020.8
openalex publication_date 2020/03/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/03
Abstract While youth suffrage is widely debated, the causal effects of being eligible to vote on adolescents' political attitudes are less well known. To gain insights into this question, we leverage data from a real-life quasi-experiment of voting at 16 in the city of Ghent (Belgium). We compare the attitudes of adolescents that were entitled to vote with their peers that just fell below the age cut-off. We also examine the effects of the enfranchisement at 18-years-old. While we find an effect of youth enfranchisement on attention to politics, there is no evidence for an effect of enfranchisement on political engagement overall.