IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v63y2019i1p67-83.html

The Anti‐Democrat Diploma: How High School Education Decreases Support for the Democratic Party

Author

Listed:
  • John Marshall

Abstract

Attending high school can alter students' life trajectories by affecting labor market prospects and through exposure to ideas and networks. However, schooling's influence competes with early socialization forces and may be confounded by selection biases. Consequently, little is known about whether or how high school education shapes downstream political preferences and voting behavior. Using a generalized difference‐in‐differences design leveraging variation in U.S. state dropout laws across cohorts, I find that raising the school dropout age decreases Democratic partisan identification and voting later in life. Instrumental variables estimates suggest that an additional completed grade of high school decreases Democratic support by around 15 percentage points among students induced to remain in school by higher dropout ages. High school's effects principally operate by increasing income and support for conservative economic policies, especially at an individual's midlife earnings peak. In contrast, such schooling does not affect conservative attitudes on noneconomic issues or political engagement.

Suggested Citation

  • John Marshall, 2019. "The Anti‐Democrat Diploma: How High School Education Decreases Support for the Democratic Party," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 63(1), pages 67-83, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:63:y:2019:i:1:p:67-83
    DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12409
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12409
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ajps.12409?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    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. DeCicca, Philip & Krashinsky, Harry & Nesson, Erik, 2023. "Rockefellers and Goldwaters: The effect of compulsory schooling on voting preferences," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    2. Alan D. Crane & Andrew Koch & Leming Lin, 2024. "Real Effects of Markets on Politics: Evidence from US Presidential Elections," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 73-88, March.
    3. Toke Aidt & Christopher Rauh, 2019. "The Rise of the 'No Party' in England," CESifo Working Paper Series 7812, CESifo.
    4. Stephen B. Billings & Eric Chyn & Kareem Haggag, 2021. "The Long-Run Effects of School Racial Diversity on Political Identity," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 267-284, September.
    5. Ethan Kaplan & Fernando Saltiel & Sergio Urzúa, 2023. "Voting for Democracy: Chile's Plebiscito and the Electoral Participation of a Generation," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 438-464, August.
    6. Caroline Le Pennec & Vincent Pons, 2023. "How do Campaigns Shape Vote Choice? Multicountry Evidence from 62 Elections and 56 TV Debates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(2), pages 703-767.
    7. repec:osf:osfxxx:bqmws_v1 is not listed on IDEAS

    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. Lai, Weizheng, 2024. "The effect of education on voter turnout in China's rural elections," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 230-247.
    2. Miguel Calvin & Pilar Rey del Castillo, 2023. "A Bayesian Networks Approach for Analyzing Voting Behavior," CESifo Working Paper Series 10855, CESifo.
    3. Ethan Kaplan & Fernando Saltiel & Sergio Urzúa, 2023. "Voting for Democracy: Chile's Plebiscito and the Electoral Participation of a Generation," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 438-464, August.
    4. G. Bellettini & C. Berti Ceroni & C. Monfardini, 2017. "Ethnic diversity and political participation: the role of individual income," Working Papers wp1114, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    5. Nadja Bömmel & Guido Heineck, 2023. "Revisiting the causal effect of education on political participation and interest," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(6), pages 664-682, November.
    6. 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).
    7. Salomo Hirvonen & Jerome Schafer & Janne Tukiainen, 2022. "Policy Feedback and Civic Engagement: Evidence from the Finnish Basic Income Experiment," Discussion Papers 155, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    8. J. Andrew Harris & Catherine Kamindo & Peter van der Windt, 2020. "Electoral Administration in Fledgling Democracies:Experimental Evidence from Kenya," Working Papers 20200036, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised Jan 2020.
    9. Esther Duflo & Pascaline Dupas & Michael Kremer, 2021. "The Impact of Free Secondary Education: Experimental Evidence from Ghana," NBER Working Papers 28937, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Chevalier, Arnaud & Doyle, Orla, 2012. "Schooling and Voter Turnout: Is there an American Exception?," IZA Discussion Papers 6539, IZA Network @ LISER.
    11. Schaub, Max, 2021. "Acute Financial Hardship and Voter Turnout: Theory and Evidence from the Sequence of Bank Working Days," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 115(4), pages 1258-1274.
    12. Daniel Miles-Touya & Máximo Rossi, 2015. "Cultural Transmission of Civic Attitudes," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 0715, Department of Economics - dECON.
    13. Jiang, Boqian, 2018. "Homeownership and voter turnout in u.s. local elections," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 168-183.
    14. Le, Kien & Nguyen, My, 2021. "Education and political engagement," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    15. Lindgren, Karl-Oskar & Oskarsson, Sven & Persson, Mikael, 2017. "Can increased education help reduce the political opportunity gap?," Working Paper Series 2017:12, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    16. Daniel Aaronson & Mark Borgschulte & Sunny Liu & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2024. "Schooling and Political Activism in the Early Civil Rights Era," Working Paper Series WP 2024-06, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    17. Gradstein, Mark, 2019. "Misallocation of talent and human capital: Political economy analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 148-157.
    18. Ragui Assaad & Miquel Pellicer & Caroline Krafft & Colette Salemi, 2002. "Grievances or Skills? The Effect of Education on Youth Attitudes and Political Participation in Egypt and Tunisia," Working Papers 1103, Economic Research Forum, revised 01 Jun 2002.
    19. Kate Baldwin & Rikhil R. Bhavnani, 2013. "Ancillary Experiments: Opportunities and Challenges," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-024, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Erdal Asker & Eric Brunner & Stephen L. Ross, 2022. "The Impact of School Spending on Civic Engagement: Evidence from School Finance Reforms," Working Papers 2022-041, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.

    More about this item

    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:wly:amposc:v:63:y:2019:i:1:p:67-83. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    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.