Social origin and political participation: does education compensate for or reinforce family advantages and disadvantages?

Acta Politica https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-023-00296-5 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Social origin and political participation: does education compensate for or reinforce family advantages and disadvantages? Vardan Barsegyan1 · Antonie Knigge1 · Ineke Maas1,2 Accepted: 23 March 2023 © The Author(s) 2023 Abstract Whether educational attainment compensates for or reinforces family disadvantages in political participation is currently a debated topic. Previous research has shown a consistent relationship between social origin and political participation in Western societies: individuals originating from low-socioeconomic-status families participate in politics less than those from high-socioeconomic-status families, which violates the democratic requirement of equality of political voice. In this paper, we investigate whether secondary education compensates for or reinforces the political inequality shaped by social origin. We used a German representative sample of 1012 identical twins aged 21–25 and applied family fixed effects regression models, which allowed us to control for measured and unmeasured social and genetic confounding. We found a positive effect of educational attainment on participation, which is most likely causal. Family disadvantage resulting from low parental education is compensated for by children finishing the academic track (Gymnasium) as opposed to the lower vocational track (Hauptschule). At the same time, family advantage originating from high parental occupational status is reinforced for children completing the academic track. We found no advantage nor disadvantage, compensation nor reinforcement, related to parental income. We conclude that compensation and reinforcement of family disadvantage may remain unnoticed if components of parental SES are not distinguished. Keywords Political participation · Social origin · Educational attainment · Family fixed effect · Twin data * Vardan Barsegyan 1 Department of Sociology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 14, 3584 CH Utrecht, The Netherlands 2 Department of Sociology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands Vol.:(0123456789) V. Barsegyan et al. Introduction Political equality requires that political participation (voting, protesting, signing petitions, etc.) is independent of an individual’s social origin (Lijphart 1996; Dahl 2006; Schlozman et al. 2018). However, the vast majority of research has shown that political participation is strongly stratified by social origin in Western societies: individuals originating from high-socioeconomic-status (SES) families, defined by high levels of education, occupational status, and income, participate in politics to a greater extent than individuals from low-SES families (Milbrath and Goel 1977; Verba et al. 1995, 2003, 2005; Schlozman et al. 2012, 2018). Political socialization in school has been thought to be a means to solve the problem of political inequality, as education is seen as a ‘universal solvent’ for many social problems (Converse and Campbell 1972; Putnam 2000). More theoretical educational tracks and longer education increase students’ ability to understand complex political issues, which would, in turn, increase their political participation (Converse and Campbell 1972; Jackson 1995; Verba et al. 1995; Nie et al. 1996; Hillygus 2005; Campbell 2006; Lewis-Beck et al. 2008). Longer schooling and attending theoretical educational tracks also means longer and higher-level political socialization in school, for example through civic education, which would also positively influence political participation. For education to solve the problem of political inequality by social origin, it should, first, have a causal effect on political participation (resource effect) (Lindgren et al. 2019). If this is the case, political inequality by social origin can be reduced in two different ways. First, inequality will decrease with educational expansion, because—due to a ceiling effect for children from high-SES families—educational expansion will especially benefit children from low-SES families. Or second, inequality will decrease if education especially increases the political participation of individuals from low-SES families (compensation effect). Otherwise, education either does not affect political participation, or it affects participation but does not reduce political inequality. Education may increase political inequality even further if it especially encourages participation of individuals from high-SES families (reinforcement effect). Reinforcement can occur when more intense political socialization in the parental family—which is more likely in high-SES families—makes political socialization in school more effective. Or if children from low-SES families are hardly affected by political socialization in school, because they have no incentive to participate in politics [the “left-behind” effect (Neundorf et al. 2016)]. We focus in this study on testing the resource effect as well as the compensation and reinforcement effects. Our data do not allow us to test the mechanism of educational expansion. Whether there is a causal effect of education on political participation is part of the ‘causal versus proxy’ debate (Kam and Palmer 2008; Persson 2015). It has been argued that the effect of education on political participation is spurious because it reflects the effects of social and genetic factors. Both educational attainment and political participation can be influenced by family environment (Cesarini et al. 2014). For example, parents can treat their children in a way that Social origin and political participation: does education… increases or decreases both educational attainment and political participation (Conley and Bennett 2000; Conley 2004). Similarly, the same genes responsible for attaining a higher level of education can also increase political participation (Ahlskog 2020). Thus, it is crucial to use data and methods that allow us to take into account both social and genetic confounding influences. Some scholars used control variables (Finkel 2002; Bovens and Wille 2010; Condon 2015). However, control variables cannot take into account the effects of unmeasured confounding variables. Other studies applied causal research designs: exogenous variation in schooling (Mettler 2002; Milligan et al. 2004; Sondheimer and Green 2010; Berinsky and Lenz 2011; Persson et al. 2016; Henderson 2018; Dang 2019; Lindgren et al. 2019), longitudinal or panel data and score matching (Kam and Palmer 2008; Persson 2012, 2014; Janmaat et al. 2014; Ma 2017), sibling data design (Gidengil et al. 2019; Burden et al. 2020), or identical twin-pairs’ design (Dinesen et al. 2016)—but their conclusions are not unequivocal. It seems education has a causal effect mostly in the US, and the effect of education is (with few exceptions) spurious in Europe (see Online Appendix A for an overview of the literature). The European studi (...truncated)