The Educational Correlates of Voting: A Cross‐sectional Study of Finnish Undergraduates’ Turnout in the 2014 European Parliament Election

Abstract

Why do well‐educated citizens show high turnout in elections? Despite broad scholarly agreement that educational attainment predicts electoral participation, there is little consensus about which aspects of higher education account for this positive association. This study addresses this gap in the empirical literature by investigating the educational correlates of micro‐level turnout. To this end, the article first discuss two types of factors that prior research has suggested to connect higher education to voting: participation‐enhancing benefits; and the type of education. Using a unique, nationally representative survey of the 2012 cohort of Finnish undergraduates, the relative importance of and relationships between these competing factors in explaining the students’ intended voting in the 2014 European Parliament election are tested. It is found that turnout is positively associated with the student’s sense of political efficacy, which also mediates between an open classroom environment and turnout. Furthermore, students enrolled in the academic university track have stronger voting intentions – an effect that reflects their sense of civic duty. By contrast, no support is found for the effect of social network centrality. These results suggest that several, but not all, elements of higher education as discussed in the literature are relevant for electoral participation.