Does cohort size matter? Assessing the effect of youth cohort size and peer influence on young people’s electoral participation

Nkansah, Godfred Bonnah; Papp, Zsófia

doi:10.1080/13676261.2022.2053666

Cited by 3 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…Eight studies on the effect of peer and youth group discussions on political behavior have yielded several noteworthy findings. Referring to Table 2, Nkansah et al (2022) highlight the influence of peers on the youth political behavior, particularly in terms of information gathering through discussion. Their research indicates youth who rely significantly on their peers for information are more likely to participate in the electoral process.…”

Section: Theme 2: Group Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies (Nkansah et al, 2022;Novy et al, 2015;Mallinson et al, 2018;Pang, 2018;Weinschenk et al, 2021) have demonstrated the positive correlation between peers perceived political knowledge and youth's likelihood of regular voting, highlighting the importance of political knowledge among youth for democratic participation. Peer discussions were found to enhance youths' political comprehension (Mallinson et al 2018;Pang 2018), thereby influencing their political attitudes and values.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since political knowledge is essential for an informed decision-making and active participation in democratic processes, seven studies classified political knowledge as the factor peers' influencing youth political behavior. As shown in Table 2, studies discovered a strong positive correlation between perceived political knowledge of peers and the likelihood of youth voting (Nkansah et al, 2022;Novy et al, 2015). This suggests that political knowledge and perceptions of democracy significantly influence the youth's political behavior, particularly voting behavior.…”

Section: Theme 1: Political Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

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Peers Influence on Youth Political Behavior: A Systematic Review

Zainurin,

Wan Husin,

Zainol

et al. 2024

IJSSR

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Youth political behaviour plays a crucial role in shaping the democratic system of a country. Several factors, such as socio-economic status, employment opportunities, and educational background, have been extensively studied in relation to their impact on youth political behaviour. However, there is a deficiency in systematic reviews specifically focusing on the influence of peers on youth political behavior. This article aims to address this gap by conducting a systematic review of relevant studies from the Web of Science, Scopus, SpringerLink, and ProQuest databases. In total, 30 studies were identified through comprehensive search terms such as “peer influence”, “youth”, “political knowledge”, and “political behavior”. Through this review, four key themes emerged: (1) political knowledge, (2) group discussion, (3) peer pressure, and (4) identity development. The findings highlight the significance of identity development and peer pressure as the most influential factors shaping youth political behaviour. By adhering to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, this review encompasses studies conducted in various countries without any geographical restrictions. Gaining a comprehensive understanding of how peers influence the political behaviour of youth can provide leaders and policymakers with crucial insights for encouraging knowledgeable peer networks.

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Section: Theme 2: Group Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theme 1: Political Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

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Peers Influence on Youth Political Behavior: A Systematic Review

Zainurin,

Wan Husin,

Zainol

et al. 2024

IJSSR

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“…Guided by the existing evidence, our study supposed that large YCS will be inimical to the faith of young people in the democratic culture. We assumed that the oftenargued triune conditions created by a youth bulge: socioeconomic deprivation of the members of the cohort (Apolte and Gerling, 2018;Brunello, 2010;Korenman and Neumark, 2000), socio-biological experiences of adolescence and youthfulness which predispose young people to idealistic, antidemocratic and extremist ideas (Cincotta and Doces, 2011;Weber, 2013Weber, , 2019, and the shift in social influence from the preferred 'adult-youth' social learning environment to the more peer dominant and driven 'youth-youth' socialization experiences due to their sheer numbers (Hart et al, 2004;Nkansah and Papp, 2022) would combine to negatively influence the judgement of young people about democracy.…”

Section: Discussion/conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The above skewness in social influence in favor of the younger generation due to their large cohort size implies that they are more likely to be politicized and influenced in their attitudes and beliefs, through a large pool of peer agents within the population, than through the more conventional structures of political socialization, such as the family and the school system. Past studies on the effect of peers on the political socialization of young people show this position to be strongly tenable (Dostie-Goulet, 2009;Pilkington and Pollock, 2015;Quintelier, 2015;Nkansah and Papp, 2022).…”

Section: 21 Main Effect: Youth Cohort Size and Youth Support For Demo...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Young People’s Demography in Democracy: The Effect of Youth Cohort Size on Youth Political Attitudes and Behaviors in Democratic Societies (1995-2020)

Nkansah

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Despite a few pockets of evidence to the contrary, the traditional literature on youth political attitudes and political participation generally asserts that young people in Western democracies are shunning institutionalized politics such as voting, for non-institutionalized politics such as protests. Young people are also argued to be the least adherent to attitudes that support democracy as a political system. Extant research has looked to socioeconomic resources, incentives, and value/cultural changes for explanations to the observed trends. The explanatory potential of demography, however, remains unexplored. This dissertation accordingly examines whether the share of young people within the adult population of democratic countries explains their political attitudes and participation. It investigates the effects of young people’s cohort size on their individual propensities to (1) vote in national elections, (2) participate in peaceful demonstrations (3) support democracy as a political system, across both established and new democracies. The study uses single-level and multilevel logistic regression modeling techniques within large -N research designs, on individual-level data from World Values Survey Waves 3-7 (1995- 2020), and country-level data from the United Nations Population Division, World Bank, the Polity IV democracy Index, and the Economist Intelligence Unit, in three research studies that comprise this portfolio dissertation. The study shows that young people’s cohort size predicts key youth political attitudes and participation in both institutionalized and non institutionalized activities. Young people’s cohort size was found to exert significant direct effects on their propensities to vote in national elections, participate in peaceful demonstrations, and support democracy as a political system. On the one hand, the larger the cohort size of the youth, the less likely that compared to their peers in democratic societies with smaller youth cohort sizes: I. They will vote in national elections. II. Those with higher education will participate in protests when faced with high rates of unemployment. The mechanism by which young people’s cohort size affects their political participation behaviors is argued in this dissertation to manifest through a reduction in the social and economic fortunes of young people growing as part of a large youth population, due to a disequilibrium between their large numbers and the often-limited employment opportunities in the labor market. I argue that this imbalance between their demography and available economic opportunities tends to delay their transition into adulthood, marked by social and economic milestones such as completion of education, gainful employment, marriage, ability to afford your own accommodation, and also provide financial assistance to their significant others. The quest to improve their socioeconomic situations consequently deflects their attention from the more political demands of life, towards a focus on meaningfully integrating into economic life, in order to achieve these social markers of adulthood at that stage of their lives. And while, on the other hand, it is tempting to believe that such declining commitments to political participation by young people could actually be symptomatic of a more serious disillusion with democracy itself as a political system, the findings of this study are rather reassuring in this regard. The study shows that a large youth cohort size associates positively with young people’s propensity to support democracy as a political system. Importantly, however, this positive effect is conditional upon the quality of democracy of the countries in which they live, such that the more established a democratic society, the stronger the propensity that members of a youth bulge will show approval for democracy as a political system. I argue, therefore, that contemporary young people in democratic societies are rather shrewd. They behave like critical citizens/dissatisfied democrats: they believe in and remain committed to the core ideals of democracy as a political system and support it. Their declining commitment to key political activities such as voting and participation in demonstrations, particularly for the unemployed among them, in the face of their burgeoning numbers, may thus be related more to efforts at navigating around the existential challenges associated with being a part of a youth bulge, which cause them to, sometimes, prioritize socioeconomic goals over politics. To an extent, the feeling of a lack of political efficacy may also account especially for their voter apathy. The present findings are novel and hold important implications for both theory and empirical research.

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Anti-democratic youth? The influence of youth cohort size and quality of democracy on young people’s support for democracy

Nkansah

Bartha

2023

Contemporary Politics

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This paper aims to investigate whether a country's youth cohort size and quality of democracy, independently and jointly predict young people's propensity to support democracy as a political system. We use pooled data from World Values Survey Waves 5-7, comprising 81 country-waves with 25,125 observations from 39 established and new democracies, in multilevel binary logistic regression analyses. The paper finds evidence that firstly, against conventional expectations, a large youth cohort exerts a positive influence on young people's support for democracy as a political system. Secondly, the effect of youth cohort size depends on the quality of democracy of countries: young people growing as part of the youth cohorts in established democracies show stronger propensities to support democracy than their peers in new democracies. This has implications for both theory and empirical research.

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Does cohort size matter? Assessing the effect of youth cohort size and peer influence on young people’s electoral participation

Cited by 3 publications

References 63 publications

Peers Influence on Youth Political Behavior: A Systematic Review

Peers Influence on Youth Political Behavior: A Systematic Review

Young People’s Demography in Democracy: The Effect of Youth Cohort Size on Youth Political Attitudes and Behaviors in Democratic Societies (1995-2020)

Anti-democratic youth? The influence of youth cohort size and quality of democracy on young people’s support for democracy

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