Parental Socialisation and Democratic Inequality. Class, Family, and Electoral Participation over the Life Course

Declining turnout among less advantaged citizens has deepened the stratification of political participation in Britain, raising fundamental questions about democratic inclusion. Political inequality is not only structured by socioeconomic background but also transmitted within families during the formative years of adolescence, leaving imprints that persist across the life course and shape patterns of participation into adulthood.
The analysis draws on a methodological innovation: linking children to their parents in the BHPS and UKHLS (1995–2022). This intergenerational design captures parental political behaviour and socioeconomic position during formative years (ages 15-18), avoiding the recall biases of retrospective measures and offering the first systematic use of household linkages to study electoral participation in the British case. This approach enables a precise evaluation of the dynamics through which political inequality is reproduced and stratified over time.
The results highlight three core dynamics. First, parental political behaviour has a strong and lasting impact on electoral participation, persisting into adulthood and largely unaffected by life-course transitions. It operates both as a mediator, translating socioeconomic advantage into participatory advantage, and as a moderator, shaping the degree to which class background influences political engagement over time. Second, substantial heterogeneity exists within social classes. Middle-class families, in particular, display sharper divides in participation depending on parental political engagement, suggesting that family dynamics can deepen rather than soften inequalities within advantaged groups. Third, the macro-political context plays a critical role. Cohorts who came of age during periods of heightened class polarisation in turnout, notably in the aftermath of the 2005 General Election, show more persistent and pronounced class-based participation gaps. The influence of parental political behaviour interacts with these macro conditions, strengthening or weakening their effects across the life course.
This study demonstrates the value of a life-course approach to political socialisation. Electoral participation is shaped not only by class background or family dynamics, but by their interaction across time and within political contexts. The formative years leave durable imprints, as parental political behaviour during adolescence exerts a lasting influence that continues into adulthood. Yet the strength of class and family effects varies over the life course, with macro-political environments amplifying or attenuating inequalities at key moments such as the post-2005 period of heightened class polarisation. By situating family dynamics within broader structural and contextual conditions, and by exploiting an innovative intergenerational design, the study advances understanding of how democratic inequalities are created, transmitted, and reshaped across generations.