IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v149y2020i3d10.1007_s11205-020-02278-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

(Home-)Schools of Democracy? On the Intergenerational Transmission of Civic Engagement

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Binder

    (Bard College Berlin
    Levy Economics Institute of Bard College)

Abstract

Where do individuals learn civic engagement? While voluntary associations are often seen as the breeding grounds for democratic skills and virtues, many preferences are learned by children in their family and thus passed on between generations. The present paper uses data from the British Household Panel Survey (1991–2008) for the UK to analyze the intergenerational transmission of civic engagement and political participation preferences. It finds that both voluntary associational count variables as well as frequency and strength measures of doing volunteer work and political party support are correlated between parents and their grown up children (i.e. after leaving the parental household), even when controlling for resources like socio-economic background. The intergenerational transmission is more pronounced with regard to triggering filial civic engagement, but frequency of parental engagement is less strongly transmitted. A robustness analysis suggests that peer influences (as measured by regional levels of civic engagement) do not drive the intergenerational transmission of civic engagement.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Binder, 2020. "(Home-)Schools of Democracy? On the Intergenerational Transmission of Civic Engagement," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 911-945, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:149:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s11205-020-02278-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-020-02278-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-020-02278-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11205-020-02278-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher Boyce & Alex Wood & Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2013. "Is Personality Fixed? Personality Changes as Much as “Variable” Economic Factors and More Strongly Predicts Changes to Life Satisfaction," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 111(1), pages 287-305, March.
    2. Bruce Sacerdote, 2002. "The Nature and Nurture of Economic Outcomes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 344-348, May.
    3. Wilhelm, Mark Ottoni & Brown, Eleanor & Rooney, Patrick M. & Steinberg, Richard, 2008. "The intergenerational transmission of generosity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(10-11), pages 2146-2156, October.
    4. Necker, Sarah & Voskort, Andrea, 2014. "Intergenerational transmission of risk attitudes – A revealed preference approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 66-89.
    5. Anger, Silke & Heineck, Guido, 2010. "Do Smart Parents Raise Smart Children? The Intergenerational Transmission of Cognitive Abilities," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 23, pages 1105-1132.
    6. Andreas Waldkirch & Serena Ng & Donald Cox, 2004. "Intergenerational Linkages in Consumption Behavior," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(2).
    7. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2012. "The Intergenerational Transmission of Risk and Trust Attitudes," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(2), pages 645-677.
    8. Black, Sandra E. & Devereux, Paul J., 2011. "Recent Developments in Intergenerational Mobility," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 16, pages 1487-1541, Elsevier.
    9. Necker, Sarah & Voskort, Andrea, 2014. "Politics and parents — Intergenerational transmission of values after a regime shift," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 177-194.
    10. Matthias Doepke & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2008. "Occupational Choice and the Spirit of Capitalism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 747-793.
    11. Brady, Henry E. & Verba, Sidney & Schlozman, Kay Lehman, 1995. "Beyond SES: A Resource Model of Political Participation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(2), pages 271-294, June.
    12. Benjamin Volland, 2013. "On the intergenerational transmission of preferences," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 217-249, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maria Clara Figueiredo Dalla Costa Ames & Mauricio Custódio Serafim, 2023. "Multiple Cases of Pro-life Volunteering in a Neo-Aristotelian Ethical Approach," RAC - Revista de Administração Contemporânea (Journal of Contemporary Administration), ANPAD - Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Administração, vol. 27(Vol. 27 N), pages 210315-2103.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. J. Ignacio Gimenez-Nadal & José Alberto Molina & Yu Zhu, 2018. "Intergenerational mobility of housework time in the United Kingdom," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 911-937, December.
    2. Tomáš Želinský, 2021. "Intertemporal Choices of Children and Adults from Poor Roma Communities: A Case Study from Slovakia," Eastern European Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 59(4), pages 378-405, July.
    3. Anna Laura Mancini & Chiara Monfardini & Silvia Pasqua, 2017. "Is a good example the best sermon? Children’s imitation of parental reading," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 965-993, September.
    4. Erik Grönqvist & Björn Öckert & Jonas Vlachos, 2017. "The Intergenerational Transmission of Cognitive and Noncognitive Abilities," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 52(4), pages 887-918.
    5. Bodo Knoll & Nadine Riedel & Eva Schlenker, 2017. "He's a Chip Off the Old Block — The Persistence of Occupational Choices Across Generations," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 31(2), pages 174-203, June.
    6. François-Charles Wolff, 2020. "The intergenerational transmission of risk attitudes: Evidence from Burkina Faso," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 181-206, March.
    7. Tim Friehe & Markus Pannenberg, 2020. "Time preferences and political regimes: evidence from reunified Germany," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 349-387, January.
    8. Giménez-Nadal, J. Ignacio & Molina, Jose Alberto & Ortega, Raquel, 2015. "As my parents at home? Gender differences in childrens’ housework between Germany and Spain," MPRA Paper 62699, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Benjamin Volland, 2013. "On the intergenerational transmission of preferences," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 217-249, October.
    10. J. Ignacio Gimenez-Nadal & Jose Alberto Molina & Raquel Ortega, 2017. "Like my parents at home? Gender differences in children’s housework in Germany and Spain," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 52(4), pages 1143-1179, June.
    11. Adamopoulou, Effrosyni & Olivieri, Elisabetta & Triviza, Eleftheria, 2024. "Eating habits, food consumption, and health: The role of early life experiences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    12. Bredtmann, Julia & Höckel, Lisa Sofie & Otten, Sebastian, 2020. "The intergenerational transmission of gender role attitudes: Evidence from immigrant mothers-in-law," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 101-115.
    13. Philipp Huebler & Andreas Kucher, 2016. "Ashes to ashes, time to time - Parental time discounting and its role in the intergenerational transmission of smoking," Discussion Paper Series 326, Universitaet Augsburg, Institute for Economics.
    14. Carlos Bethencourt & Lars Kunze, 2019. "Like Father, Like Son: Inheriting and Bequeathing," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 20(2), pages 194-216, May.
    15. Alberto Bisin & Thierry Verdier, 2010. "The Economics of Cultural Transmission and Socialization," NBER Working Papers 16512, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. repec:zbw:rwirep:0318 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Maria Zumbuehl & Thomas Dohmen & Gerard Pfann, 2018. "Parental Involvement and the Intergenerational Transmission of Economic Preferences and Attitudes," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0148, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).
    18. Mevlude Akbulut-Yuksel & Belgi Turan, 2013. "Left behind: intergenerational transmission of human capital in the midst of HIV/AIDS," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 1523-1547, October.
    19. Benjamin Volland, 2012. "The vertical transmission of time use choices," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2012-05, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    20. Jordi Caballé, 2016. "Intergenerational mobility: measurement and the role of borrowing constraints and inherited tastes," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 393-420, November.
    21. Zumbühl, Maria & Dohmen, Thomas & Pfann, Gerard A., 2013. "Parental Investment and the Intergenerational Transmission of Economic Preferences and Attitudes," IZA Discussion Papers 7476, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Civic engagement; Political participation; Intergenerational transmission; Preference learning; BHPS;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:149:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s11205-020-02278-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.