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Widowhood Effects in Voter Participation

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  • William R. Hobbs
  • Nicholas A. Christakis
  • James H. Fowler

Abstract

Past research suggests that spouses influence one another to vote, but it relies almost exclusively on correlation in turnout. It is therefore difficult to establish whether spouses mobilize each other or tend to marry similar others. Here, we test the dependency hypothesis by examining voting behavior before and after the death of a spouse. We link nearly six million California voter records to Social Security death records and use both coarsened exact matching and multiple cohort comparison to estimate the effects of spousal loss. The results show that after turnout rates stabilize, widowed individuals vote nine percentage points fewer than they would had their spouse still been living; the results also suggest that this change may persist indefinitely. Variations in this “widowhood effect” on voting support a social‐isolation explanation for the drop in turnout.

Suggested Citation

  • William R. Hobbs & Nicholas A. Christakis & James H. Fowler, 2014. "Widowhood Effects in Voter Participation," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(1), pages 1-16, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:58:y:2014:i:1:p:1-16
    DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12040
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    Cited by:

    1. Chun-Fang Chiang & Jason M. Kuo & Megumi Naoi & Jin-Tan Liu, 2020. "What Do Voters Learn from Foreign News? Emulation, Backlash, and Public Support for Trade Agreements," NBER Working Papers 27497, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Angela Cools, 2020. "Parents, Infants, and Voter Turnout," Working Papers 20-04, Davidson College, Department of Economics.
    3. Hassan Shah & Zahir Shah & Wajid Mehmood Khattak, 2019. "Candidates Personality and Voting Preferences in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa," Global Regional Review, Humanity Only, vol. 4(1), pages 29-42, March.
    4. Maria Abreu & Özge Öner, 2020. "Disentangling the Brexit vote: The role of economic, social and cultural contexts in explaining the UK’s EU referendum vote," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(7), pages 1434-1456, October.

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