IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/poango/v1y2013i2p132-137.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender, Race, Age and Voting: A Research Note

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen Ansolabehere

    (Department of Government, Harvard University, 1737 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA)

  • Eitan Hersh

    (Department of Political Science, Yale University, 77 Prospect St., New Haven, CT 06520, USA)

Abstract

In this brief analysis, we use a new dataset of two million voter registration records to demonstrate that gender, race, and age do not correlate with political participation in the ways that previous research has shown. Among Blacks and Latinos, women participate at vastly higher rates than men; many Blacks participate at higher rates than Whites; and the relationship between age and participation is both not linear and varies by race and gender. Survey research is unable to capture the true relationship between demographics and participation on account of survey bias and, more importantly, the non-linearity of effects. As a result, theories of participation, like the dominant resources-based models, have been built on faulty premises and tested with inadequate data. Our evidence calls for a renewed effort to understand election participation by utilizing large datasets, by being attentive to linearity assumptions, and by returning to theory.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen Ansolabehere & Eitan Hersh, 2013. "Gender, Race, Age and Voting: A Research Note," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 1(2), pages 132-137.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v:1:y:2013:i:2:p:132-137
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/97
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Silver, Brian D. & Anderson, Barbara A. & Abramson, Paul R., 1986. "Who Overreports Voting?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(2), pages 613-624, June.
    2. Ansolabehere, Stephen & Hersh, Eitan, 2012. "Validation: What Big Data Reveal About Survey Misreporting and the Real Electorate," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(4), pages 437-459.
    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. Liam F. Beiser-McGrath & Robert A. Huber, 2018. "Assessing the relative importance of psychological and demographic factors for predicting climate and environmental attitudes," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 335-347, August.
    2. Michal Plaček & Cristina del Campo & Vladislav Valentinov & Gabriela Vaceková & Markéta Šumpíková & František Ochrana, 2022. "Gender Heterogeneity and Politics in Decision-Making About Green Public Procurement in the Czech Republic," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(3), pages 239-250.
    3. Plaček, Michal & del Campo, Cristina & Valentinov, Vladislav & Vaceková, Gabriela & Šumpíková, Markéta & Ochrana, František, 2022. "Gender heterogeneity and politics in decision-making about green public procurement in the Czech Republic," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 10(3), pages 239-250.

    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. Valentina A. Bali & Lindon J. Robison & Richard Winder, 2020. "What Motivates People to Vote? The Role of Selfishness, Duty, and Social Motives When Voting," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, October.
    2. Matthew DeBell & Jon A. Krosnick & Katie Gera & David S. Yeager & Michael P. McDonald, 2020. "The Turnout Gap in Surveys: Explanations and Solutions," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 49(4), pages 1133-1162, November.
    3. Rogers, Todd & Aida, Masa, 2013. "Vote Self-Prediction Hardly Predicts Who Will Vote, and Is (Misleadingly) Unbiased," Working Paper Series rwp13-010, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    4. Bryan, Gharad & Karlan, Dean & Nelson, Scott, 2009. "Commitment Contracts," Working Papers 73, Yale University, Department of Economics.
    5. Robert A. Jackson & Matthew Pietryka, 2022. "The influence of becoming a parent on political participation in the United States," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 103(3), pages 565-580, May.
    6. Yuko Mori & Takashi Kurosaki, 2011. "Does Political Reservation Affect Voting Behavior? Empirical Evidence from India," Global COE Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series gd11-205, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    7. Harka, Elona & Rocco, Lorenzo, 2022. "Studying more to vote less. Education and voter turnout in Italy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    8. Whitaker, Stephan D., 2018. "Big Data versus a survey," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 285-296.
    9. Anna L. Harvey, 2001. "Partisanship As A Social Convention," Rationality and Society, , vol. 13(4), pages 462-504, November.
    10. Richard B. Freeman, 2003. "What Do Unions Do ... to Voting?," NBER Working Papers 9992, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Rafael Hortala-Vallve & Berta Esteve-Volart, 2011. "Voter turnout in a multidimensional policy space," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 25-49, March.
    12. Vidal Díaz de Rada, 2011. "Face-to-face versus telephone surveys on political attitudes: a comparative analysis," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 45(4), pages 817-827, June.
    13. Valev, Neven, 2004. "No pain, no gain: market reform, unemployment, and politics in Bulgaria," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 409-425, September.
    14. Jeremy Clark & Abel François & Olivier Gergaud, 2020. "Electoral Turnout and Social Capital," Working Papers in Economics 20/13, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.
    15. Rachel Milstein Sondheimer & Donald P. Green, 2010. "Using Experiments to Estimate the Effects of Education on Voter Turnout," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 174-189, January.
    16. Elizabeth U. Cascio & Na'ama Shenhav, 2020. "A Century of the American Woman Voter: Sex Gaps in Political Participation, Preferences, and Partisanship since Women's Enfranchisement," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 24-48, Spring.
    17. Tom W. Smith & Jibum Kim, 2013. "An Assessment of the Multi-level Integrated Database Approach," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 645(1), pages 185-221, January.
    18. Christine Fauvelle-Aymar & Abel François, 2018. "Place of registration and place of residence: the non-linear detrimental impact of transportation cost on electoral participation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 405-440, September.
    19. Richard B. Freeman, 2003. "What, Me Vote?," NBER Working Papers 9896, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Stefano Dellavigna & John A. List & Ulrike Malmendier & Gautam Rao, 2017. "Voting to Tell Others," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(1), pages 143-181.

    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:cog:poango:v:1:y:2013:i:2:p:132-137. 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: António Vieira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.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.