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‘Why do you bother at your age?’1

Exploring the Impact of Old Age Culture on Political

Participation of Older People across Europe

Achim Goerres

Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Societies Cologne

To be presented at Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung

16 April 2007

E-Mail: Goerres@mpifg.de

Internet: http://www.achimgoerres.de

7,820 words

Abstract:

This paper starts from the assumption that political participation outside of institutionalised channels is becoming more important. At the same time, demographic changes in Europe lead an increasing number of older citizens, who have lower participation rates than younger people. Why do older individuals participate less in non-institutionalised channels of politics? On the one hand, existing hypotheses predict a generational catch-up. On the other, we should also expect a permanent gap due to less resources and motivation to participate and due to less political dissatisfaction among older people.

Although there is evidence for all of these explanations, they are insufficient to explain the gap between older and younger people entirely. Instead, this paper suggests that the culture of old age – how public opinion sees older people – can partially account for the unexplained difference between younger and older citizens. Surprisingly, the more senior-friendly a society is, the less older people participate in politics outside of institutions, which suggests that this senior-friendliness might be connected to saturated older people’s interests. There is evidence that the old age culture of a society is rooted in the religious and welfare traditions of a society as well as its current economic and demographic make-up. The empirical evidence stems from two sources of survey data: the World Values Survey 1981-2000 and the European Social Survey 2002.

Keywords: older people, political participation, old age culture, generations, life cycle Earlier drafts of this paper were presented at the annual conference of the Specialist Group Social Movements of the German Political Science Association in Berlin, October 2006, at the Soziologisches Oberseminar of the University of Cologne, and at the MPI for Demographic Research Rostock. For detailed comments, I would like to thank Marius R. Busemeyer, Holger Döring, and Andreas Hadjar.

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In 2003, a British protest movement started to build up against rises in the local

property tax, the Council Tax. Its street demonstrations received wide media

coverage because most protesters were pensioners and older than 65. The media

stressed the high age of these protester; for example, the Daily Telegraph described

them as ‘the grey army that marches against Blair’ (Sylvester 2003). Britain, like all

European countries, is ageing. The proportion of older people who are older than 60

has reached one fifth in most European societies. It seems odd that street

demonstrations and other forms of non-institutionalised participation by this rapidly

growing group of citizens are particularly newsworthy. However, surveys tell us that

older people are still less likely to participate in these channels of politics. But why is

this so? If newer, ‘post-modern’ forms of political participation matter, we need to

know why this growing proportion of the population is still less likely to commit

these activities. This is all the more important because older people are very active in

the conventional, institutionalised forms of participation, for example as diligent

voters or party members.

This paper tests three conventional hypotheses and suggests an additional

explanation that takes the societal culture of old age into consideration. The

empirical evidence stems from statistical analyses of the World Values Survey 1981

– 2000 (WVS) and the European Social Survey 2002 (ESS). The paper adds to the

still scarce literature on older people and politics. It combines the political science

literature on comparative political behaviour with works from social gerontology and

psychology.

The findings are: (a) older generations are less likely to use non-institutionalised

forms of participation, but are steadily catching up with younger people of similar

social backgrounds, although there remains a sizeable gap; (b) Less motivation and

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resources to participate in politics and more political satisfaction play a minor role to

explain lower participation rates among older people; (c) most astonishingly, the

paper finds evidence for the effect of the culture of old age on participation rates.

Being in a senior-friendly society like Sweden, where many people are prepared to

do something for older people, makes older people above the age of 60 less likely to

be active than in senior-unfriendly societies, like Britain; (d) exploratory analysis

yields that the following factors are of importance to explain the old age culture of a

society: religious and welfare state traditions as well as economic and demographic

characteristics.

Section 1 reviews the literature and introduces four explanations for low

participation rates among older people. Section 2 presents the research design, the

methods and the data. Section 3 is the first part of the threefold empirical analysis. I

investigate three waves of the WVS from a longitudinal perspective. Section 4 puts

forward the cross-sectional regression analysis of the ESS with a flurry of age-related

independent variables and a proxy for old age culture that has been taken from the

WVS. Section 5 explores the roots of old age culture in Europe. Section 6

summarises the paper.

1 Theoretical Discussion

The type of political participation to be researched here is ‘non-institutionalised’

political participation (Kaase 1999). It is characterised by its non-committal nature.

Participants take part in single political actions, like signing a petition or going to a

demonstration. The participant does not subscribe to the overall programme or goals

of an organisation, although organisations might be important to offer the

opportunities for these political actions. Recent research suggests that these ‘post-

modern’ forms of participation are becoming more popular, and might even become

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more important than voting or engagement through parties (Dalton 2004; Inglehart

1990; Norris 2002).

The analysis draws on two very distinct strands of literature. Political

scientists have more or less neglected the issue of political participation among older

people. They tend to take an interest in disentangling generational and age/life cycle

effects as part of a bigger analysis. As I will demonstrate, this strand of the literature

suggests three hypotheses about the differences in political participation between

older and younger individuals: generational differences in socialisation, less

motivation/resources, and less political dissatisfaction. Outside of political science,

social psychologists and social gerontologists deal with wider issues of the social

behaviour of older people. There is growing evidence that societies develop images

and expected social roles of old age. The question then arises whether these images

could impact on political behaviour at old age; and if so, in what direction? In

analogy to early hypotheses about women and political participation, one could think

that - if the image proscribes social passivity – older people are less active in politics.

In analogy to some studies on activation and mobilisation of older people however,

one could think that a negative social image activated older people to stand up for

their rights.

Conventional Explanations of lower participation levels of older people

In political science, age is a frequently employed control variable in studies of

political protest and related non-institutionalised forms of participation.

Conceptually, age stands for two different phenomena. For one, older people belong

to a different generation, the members of which share certain socialisation

experiences. The scope of legitimate political action learned in early adulthood still

determines the scope of political action in later life. Since the universe of common

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legitimate political participation expanded in the last decades, differences in political

participation between age groups could be due to differences between generations

(Dalton 2004; Norris 1999; 2002; 2003; Stolle, Hooghe, and Micheletti 2005; Topf

1995). Since political protest as a form of political expression became more and

more common, some authors talked about the ‘normalisation’ of protest and the

‘normalisation of the protester’ (della Porta and Diani 1999; Norris, Walgrave, and

Van Aelst 2005; Van Aelst and Walgrave 2001).

This normalisation process should be reflected in a diminishing gap between

generations. The process should occur independently of other social characteristics,

the distribution of which also changed across generations: (a) access to higher

education became much more easily available after World War II in Western Europe.

As higher education increases the likelihood to commit all kinds of political

participation, newer cohorts of older people should be more participatory than

previous ones; (b) women’s socialisation into political passivity and into the belief

that politics is a male domain is on the decline. Older cohorts of women could still be

more politically passive than younger women; (c) Christian religiosity and religious

practice declined. As religiosity implies a certain degree of rule-abidance and

deference, non-institutionalised forms of political participation should now become

more likely; (d) finally, the social capital argument (Putnam 2000) might work in

favour of the participation level of older people. Social capital as measured in

organisational membership might be on the decline, and its benefits for a

participatory political culture might thus decrease. Thus, older generation might still

be more involved in organisations that increase their likelihood to participate

politically. These competing generational explanations must be controlled for in the

empirical analysis.

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H1: The gap in participation levels between older and younger people closes across

time (normalisation hypothesis).

In contrast to this hypothesis, older people are also at a different stage of their

life cycle than younger people, a situation that is common across generations. For

example, older people tend to be retired and are thus rich in time. In the Political

Action Study (Barnes, Kaase, and others 1979: 101), the higher likelihood of

younger people to protest was explained with their ‘physical vigor, the freedom from

day-to-day responsibilities of career and family’ and the fact that they had the time to

protest. Implicitly, older people lack some of these resources and social conditions

that are attributed to the life cycle. This life cycle perspective must be clearly

separated from the widely-accepted notion that older generations have less resources

or motivation to engage in political activities due to the aforementioned large-scale

social changes, for example the spread of higher education (Dalton 2004; Dalton

2002; Inglehart 1990).

H2: Older people have less resources and motivation that are positive predictors of

political participation (social networks, embeddedness in work sphere, good health,

efficacy) (lack of resources and motivation hypothesis).

Younger people might also resort to non-institutionalised participation out of

frustration as power positions in organisations – be it political or non-political – tend

to be held by older people (Williamson et al. 1982). Political protest as a non-

institutionalised form of participation would thus be a vehicle to channel any

grievances and feelings of relative deprivation (see Gurr 1970; Tilly 1978). As a

consequence, older people would use non-institutionalised participation less because

they would be more satisfied with the formal channel of politics. In addition, the

older individuals are, the more they are generally satisfied because they seem to learn

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to lower their aspirations (Herzog and Rodgers 1986). Thus, there should always be

an age gap in non-institutionalised political participation.

H3: Older people are more satisfied with the political situation; political satisfaction

is a negative predictor of non-institutionalised political participation (less

dissatisfaction hypothesis).

Additional Explanations

As I will demonstrate, none of these conventional hypotheses can fully explain the

differences between younger and older individuals as to non-institutionalised

political activities. Instead, I suggest a fourth explanation that centres on the culture

of old age in a country. There is a growing body of social-psychological and

gerontological literature that compares societies with respect to their images and

stereotypes of old age (Kruse and Schmitt 2006; McConatha et al. 2003; Miller and

Acuff 1982; Minichiello, Browne, and Kendig 2000; Tuckman and Lorge 1953;

Wilson 2000). Age can be a defining factor for the social construction of groups with

stereotypes and prejudices. Individuals use these stereotypes as cognitive shortcuts

when dealing with somebody they perceive to belong to the socially constructed

group. If the image and stereotypes of old age were stable in a given social

environment, individuals might have internalised them already when they grow old.

It is then a plausible proposition that older people are being influenced in their

political behaviour (as much as in any other social behaviour) by commonly-held

stereotypes and images about old age because they believe these projections to be

true.

This general proposition has two contending, testable hypotheses. The first

hypothesis can be derived from the literature on political participation of women.

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Women tended to make less use of some forms of political participation. One of the

explanation for this gender gap was that women were socialised into social roles at

young age that prescribed political passivity (and reliance on their husbands to take

care of their political interests) (Greenstein 1961; Jennings 1983; Mayer and Schmidt

2004; McGlone, Aronson, and Kobrynowicz 2006; Orum et al. 1974; Welch 1977).

According to this notion, politics is a male domain. If we think in analogous terms

for older people, political participation outside of political institutions might be

perceived to be youth-dominated. Older people might have internalised the

conception of these kinds of activities as being outside of their ‘legitimate’ courses of

action. Therefore, the more negative the socially constructed image of ‘older people’,

the less older people are politically active in these channels, all other things being

equal. Thus, protesting older people are not only newsworthy because they are rare,

but also because they defy commonly held stereotypes about the socially legitimate

course of political action for older people.

H4a: In more senior-friendly societies, older people participate more in politics in

comparison to younger people with all other things being equal (negative image of

old age hypothesis).

The second, contending notion can be linked to the literature of interest

representation of older people. There has been work on reforms of social security and

Medicare in the United States that shows how older people as recipients of these

welfare programmes were mobilised to become politically active (Campbell 2002;

2003a; b). If a society holds a positive view of older people, this might also mean

that the interests of older people are being taken care of. Thus, older people might

feel less need to be active outside of institutionalised channels because the polity and

the society have taken care of their interests, maybe due to a moral obligation

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towards older people. Vice versa, if a society has adopted a negative image of old

age, the interests of older people might be less taken care of. Older people might feel

the need to be more politically active, especially outside the established participation

channels. In the latter case, interest groups of old age possibly play an important role

in raising awareness of old age issues and activating their constituents. The

hypothesised causal chain of the societal image of older people first goes to the

protection of older people’s interests and then to political participation of older

people. This chain is indirect in juxtaposition to the one presented in hypothesis H4a

that posits that the image of old age is directly internalised by older people and

reflected in their political behaviour.

H4b: in more senior-unfriendly societies, older people participate more in politics in

comparison to younger people with all other things being equal (activation

hypothesis).

This section presented five hypotheses from the literature on comparative

political behaviour, social gerontology, and psychology. Older people might be less

likely to be politically active outside of institutionalised channels because (a) they

were less exposed to these forms of political participation during their

impressionable years, but more recent generations should soon close the gap towards

younger people at old age; (b) they have less motivation and resources to engage in

political activities; (c) they are more satisfied with formal politics, meaning that the

non-institutionalised forms of participation are viewed as less necessary to use. Two

new explanations hold that the old age culture of a society could make older people

less participatory because (d) they internalise images of socially passive older people

or (e) their interests are being taken care off because they are highly valued in a

society.

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2 Research Design and Data

The empirical analysis is conducted in three parts. Part 1 is a longitudinal analysis of

the WVS across three points in time for Western Europe. This is to test the

normalisation hypothesis H1. Secondly, I use the ESS for a cross-sectional

comparative analysis to test the lack of resources and motivation and the lesser

dissatisfaction hypotheses H2 and H3. I demonstrate that – despite the inclusion of a

multitude of age-related variables – there still remains unexplained variance between

age groups that I am unable to capture conceptually. I create a measure of old age

culture, the helpfulness towards older people, from the WVS and add it to the ESS

analysis to test H4a and H4b. In part 3, the main determinants of the proxy of old age

culture are explored with the WVS.

Non-institutionalised political participation is analysed in two ways: the

longitudinal comparison of age groups and cross-sectional regression analysis with a

variety of European countries. In the longitudinal analysis, I simply compare

participation levels of groups defined by age. I look at older people, who are defined

as those individuals 50 and older, and younger people defined as those individuals

who are younger than 30.2 I control for some simple social characteristics that are to

capture the main compositional changes between generations: education, gender,

organisational membership and religiosity. The weighted sample consists of

respondents in ten established European democracies (Belgium, Denmark, France,

Great Britain, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, and (West-) Germany),

for which data was available for 1981, 1990 and 1999. This sample ensures that the

number of observations per age group and time period is sufficiently high to allow

reliable estimates.

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This approach is to test the normalisation hypothesis that older generations

were less likely to be exposed to these kinds of participation and that – in the long

run – differences between age groups should vanish. Suppose that there are no

generational differences and that there are only differences due to the life cycle. If

that was true, the differences between older and younger people would be the same at

all three points in time. If there were generational changes, the differences between

the two groups would change because it would always be different generations

facing each other at each point in time.3

The second technique is the regression analysis of international, cross-

sectional survey data with 19 European countries4 (see for example De Graaf 1999;

Goerres 2007; Nie, Verba, and Kim 1974; Rubenson et al. 2004). If you just ask

individuals at one point in time, a systematic difference in participation levels

between age groups can be due to statistical life cycle, generational or interaction

effects between a period effect and one of the two. However, these statistical effects

confound many different causal mechanisms. They cannot give an indication why,

for example, a generational decline in participation levels might exist. When the

researcher starts to introduce age-related independent variables into the regression

analysis in addition to the age variable, the difference that is being captured by the

(theoretically shallow) age variable becomes smaller. If one is able to control for the

actual conceptual differences, one can – best case – disentangle all the difference

between age groups. Statistically speaking, the residual effect of the age variable

should become insignificant.

An assessment of the literature gives the researcher a flurry of independent

variables that should explain part of the difference between older and younger

individuals. For example, the lesser dissatisfaction hypothesis demands that ageing

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individuals lower their aspiration levels and are therefore more politically satisfied

and as a consequence less likely to be active in non-institutionalised forms of

participation. If we control for political satisfaction, that difference in participation

levels should not be captured any longer in the coefficient of the age variable. For

this approach, it is enough to show that effects are age-related, which can be done by

simple bivariate correlations. So the researcher does not test whether, for example,

political satisfaction is a generational or life cycle effect, but relies for this

assessment on the literature. This is possible because the analysis only hinges on the

inclusion of age-related control variables that reduce the noise between younger and

older people. In sum: if the researcher is able to control for all life cycle and

generational differences in a statistical analysis, she should be able to explain all

differences between age groups. If on the other hand, there was still some variance

between age groups that she could not explain, she would be missing something

important.

After the cross-sectional analysis of the ESS, I also explore the roots of old

age culture in a further cross-sectional regression analysis with the WVS (wave

1999/2000). That analysis stretches over 16 European countries for which all data

was available.5 In addition to the survey data, I introduce some macro variables that I

derived from studies of Eurostat, the Council of Europe, the International Social

Security Association and the United Nations.

3 Empirical Part I: Longitudinal Analysis of Western Europe 1981 - 2000

[Insert figures 1a-1d here]

According to the point of departure of the normalisation thesis, older

generations are less likely to commit non-institutionalised forms of participation

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because they were exposed less to these forms of participation when they were

young. Since the repository of political participation has widened, newer generations

are increasingly exposed to a wider scope of political behaviour and should therefore

show growing probabilities of committing these forms of participation. Four other

long-term social changes could also account for generational differences and must be

taken into account: spread of higher education, changing gender roles, the decline in

religiosity and the decline in social capital.

The respondents were asked ‘I'm going to read out some different forms of

political action that people can take, and I'd like you to tell me, for each one, whether

you have actually done any of these things, whether you might do it or would never,

under any circumstances, do it.’ Non-institutionalised political participation is legal

and does not require the long-term support of an organisation. I looked at two

political actions of this kind that were suggested to the respondents at all three points

in time, namely taking part in legal demonstrations and signing a petition. These

forms of participation are also comparable to the ones that we are going to analyse

later on with the ESS. I calculated the proportions for each age group, for those 16 to

29 years old and those 50 and older, who had committed at least one of the two

political actions.6

In figures 1 a-d, I have graphed differences in proportions of the older and

younger age groups who ever had committed one of the political actions. A column

that goes above the zero line symbolises that the older age group has a higher

likelihood to have committed one political action; a column below zero means the

opposite. There are values for three points in time 1981, 1990 and 1999. In black,

each sub-graph shows the difference between the two age groups in general. In

addition, I have dichotomised differences along four social characteristics that derive

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from the described macro societal changes: education (high/low = respondent older

or younger than 18 when she finished full-time education), gender, organisational

membership (high/low=whether respondent is member of at least one social or

political organisation) and religion (high/low=whether respondent thinks it is

important that a child learn religious faith at home).

The probability of having committed one of the two actions - regardless of

age – rose from 18 percent in 1981 over 28 percent in 1990 to 35 percent in 2000.

Let us first look at the undifferentiated graph that shows us the picture for the two

age groups as a whole (black column in each sub-graph). In 1981, individuals older

than 50 were 15 percent less likely to have been active than those people younger

than 30. In 1990, the relative difference was the same (although the absolute levels

had increased by 9 percent for each age group). In 2000, the difference decreased to

8 percent. However, in absolute levels, older people in 2000 were more likely to have

committed one of these actions than younger people in 1981. Not only are older

people becoming more active overtime, they are also disproportionally gaining in

activity levels, i.e. older people catch up with younger people. When we now look at

the graphs for education in figure 1a, we see an even stronger picture of catching-up.

In 1981, older individuals with high levels of education were 23 percent less likely to

have been politically active, compared to younger people. In 2000, the gap was

almost zero and even slightly reversed with older higher educated individuals being

even 1 percent more likely to have been politically active.7 With regard to lower

levels of education, the discrepancy was not as big in 1981 and also melted down to

almost nothing in 2000. Within groups of the same educational level, older

individuals are no longer any different from younger people.8

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With regard to the other three social characteristics, we see catching-up

trends for those categories that are thought to be positively related to political

participation: men, those individuals who are organisationally involved, and those

who do not think that religion is important. Older men clearly caught up with

younger men with the gap melting from 13 percent in 1981 to 3 percent in 2000

(figure 1b). Older women, however, seem not to have caught up so easily. The

difference to younger women was 16 percent in 1981, 21 percent in 1990 and 12

percent in 2000. Along similar lines (figure 1c), we find a clear catching-up trend for

older people that are members of at least one organisation, relative to younger people

who are member of one organisation (gap declined from 17 to 5 percent). Again, the

trend is slower for those who are not organisationally active. With regard to religion

(figure 1d), there also was a differentiated pattern of relative catching-up; older

people who did not think that a child should learn religious faith clearly caught up

with the gap declining from 15 to 6 percent, but those who did think that such a thing

is a good idea, did not show a declining gap.

To sum up, we find that older people in Western Europe generally caught up

vis-à-vis younger people of the time. This process of catching up happened in

addition to four generational social changes. However, the patterns of catching-up

are differentiated by three social characteristics (gender, organisational membership

and religiosity). Those groups who were less inclined to be politically active were

most reluctant to the change in the participatory process. Their growth rates of

participation outside of institutions are flattest. All in all, the normalisation thesis is

being supported by this evidence, although we must add that some social

characteristics, which are adversarial to political activity, seem to make

normalisation, relative to the comparison group of younger people, more difficult.

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4 Empirical Part II: Cross-sectional Regression analysis of 19 European countries in 2002

The dependent and independent variables

For the regression analysis, an additive index of six different actions of non-

institutionalised participation is constructed as the dependent variable. These actions

are legal, do not require organisational commitment and are characterised by their

individualised nature: contacting a public official or politician, buying a product for

political or ethical reasons, boycotting a product for political or ethical reasons,

signing a petition, wearing a badge and demonstrating legally. The index varies

between 0 and 6.9

[Min 0.37| Max 1.11]: This sparkline (Tufte 2006) shows the variation

of the index across age groups in 10 year intervals across Europe. Individuals

younger than 20 years of age have a mean of 0.83. The participation rate then

increases to 1.11 for those in their forties and declines thereafter to 0.37 for those

individuals aged 80 and older.

There are two macro variables that vary by country and that I include in the

regressions. The mean participation rate captures the mean of the index that I just

introduced. It varies between 0.28 (Poland) and 1.39 (Sweden). This measure is to

capture the participatory culture of a country. This could be a function of the degree

of establishment of a democracy, socio-economic development, the ‘civic culture’ or

the responsiveness of the institutional system (Nam forthcoming [2007]). We are not

interested in differences between countries, unless they affect differences between

younger and older people.10

[Insert figure 2 here]

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The second macro variable is calculated with the help of the WVS 2000. The

variable indicates the proportion of individuals – centred around the mean – who said

‘yes’ or ‘absolutely yes’ to the following statement: ‘Would you be prepared to

actually do something to improve the conditions of elderly people in your country?’.

Figure 2 presents the variation for 31 European countries, 19 of which are included

in the regression analysis with the ESS. The percentage of individuals who agreed

with the statements varies between 8 percent in Belarus and 85 percent in Sweden.11

In another set of regressions with the WVS in section 5, I explore the roots of this

measure of the old age culture that lie in the welfare and religious traditions as well

as the demographic and economic profile of the society.

Bivariate relationships between independent variables and age

In the regression, there is a flurry of 22 independent variables, some of which are

derived from the hypotheses while others control for further age-related effects. This

section demonstrates that these predictors of non-institutionalised participation are

age-related and are therefore helpful to capture differences in participation levels

between age groups in the regression analysis. Table 1 briefly lists the explanations

why these variables should be systematically related with age. Hypothesis 2 (lack of

resources and motivation) has four different aspects, some of which have several

indicators. Social embeddedness is measured through the number of organisations

with personal friends that the respondent lists, whether the respondent is co-habiting

and the number of children below 18 in the respondent’s household. Embeddedness

in the work sphere is captured through employment status, a dummy for pension as a

main source of income and the household income. Health and efficacy, which is one-

factor summary of three items from a principal component analysis, are put forward

as two variables. All these variables correlate with age in the expected direction.

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Only ‘social networks’ shows an almost zero relationship for Europe as a whole. A

country-by-country analysis reveals that social networks are more extensive for older

people in some (e.g. Finland) and less extensive in other countries (e.g. Slovenia),

relative to younger people.12 If the impact of all these variables remained in the

multivariate regression analysis, older people’s lower participation should be

explained by their lower level of social embeddedness, lower levels of embeddedness

in the work sphere, worse health and lower efficacy.

The lesser dissatisfaction hypothesis H3 posits that older people are less

likely to be politically satisfied. Political satisfaction is measured as an additive index

between 0 and 20 that adds the answers to what extend someone is satisfied on a 0-

10 scale with the way the democracy and the government works in the respective

country. I find the expected relationship in all but two countries (Belgium and Italy)

in the country-by-country analysis.13 Sometimes, the relationship is u-shaped,

meaning that the index declines to middle-age and increases thereafter. A similar

picture is revealed for general satisfaction (added index of satisfaction with life as a

whole and with the economy), which is included as a further control variable.

In a third section of table 1, there is a whole variety of other age-related

independent variables that could explain differences between younger and older

people and that are not directly linked to hypotheses H2 and H3. Note that some of

the explanations are generational and some are attributed to the life cycle. So far, we

do not know whether these systematic differences between age groups play a role for

political participation. I therefore build a regression with a host of 22 independent

indicators that are age-related in order to see whether the discussed variables still

have a (sizeable) impact.

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Ordinal regression models

Table 2 presents three regression models. All of them include a macro variable that

captures the main country differences in participatory levels and age dummies. The

age dummies divide the age span above 50 years of age into 10 year intervals that are

compared with the baseline of the 16-49 year olds. Model 1 is the baseline model for

comparisons. It shows a steep decline in the likelihood to be politically active for

those who are 60 and older, not controlling for any other individual-level

characteristics. Model 2 adds 22 individual-level variables. The size in decline

associated with the residual age dummies decreases. Thus, we are able to reduce the

unexplained gap but are still far from reducing it to zero. With regard to our

hypotheses, political satisfaction has a strongly significant impact, all other things

being equal. Thus, the lesser dissatisfaction hypothesis is supported by the evidence.

Older people are more satisfied with political institutions and satisfaction with them

is a negative predictor of political participation. I demonstrate, however, later on that

the size of the impact is not very large to explain differences between younger and

older individuals’ participation behaviours.

By contrast, the lack of resources and motivation hypothesis loses

explanatory power. Health, household income, number of children in household, a

co-habiting partner, and employment status do not have a significant impact on

political participation any longer with all these additional variables being included.

Only the involvement in social networks (which is logged because the first contacts

have a stronger impact than additional contacts for individuals who are already

intensely involved) and internal political efficacy are still strongly significant. The

lack of resources and motivation among older people is only important with regard to

their average decline in social networks and political efficacy. Recall, however, that

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the decline in social networks associated with ageing (death of friends) seems to be

counter-balanced by the positive increase with age due to generational decline in

organisational involvement (social capital explanation).

Model 3 includes the variable ‘helpfulness towards older people’ in the

regression and – at the same time – an interaction effect between the age dummies

and this measure. First of all, a likelihood ratio test that compares models 2 and 3 is

highly significant, meaning that adding that new macro variable and its interactions

with age dummies to model was a statistically significant improvement. Secondly, it

is interesting to note that the coefficient of helpfulness towards older people alone is

far from significant. It represents the interaction effect with the 16-49 age group

(which is the baseline of the series of age dummies). Thus, the proportion of people

who hold that they would help older people does not matter for the political

participation levels of that age group. This is consistent with both our hypotheses

H4a and H4b since we would not expect any interaction with that younger age group.

Also, the interaction term between helpfulness and the 50-59 is far from significant.

Thirdly, the coefficients of the interaction terms with the 60-69, 70-79 and the 80plus

age groups are all negative and significant at the .05 level or barely insignificant.14

The differences between the point estimates of the coefficients are small and could

be due to chance. Thus, the model yields that there is an impact of the senior-

friendliness of a society on older people that has an effect above 60 and remains

stable. The direction of impact is in line with our expectation for hypothesis H4b.

The more senior-friendly a society is, the less older people are politically active in

forms of non-institutionalised participation (ceteris paribus). This is what we would

expect if older people’s interests were more being taken care of in a senior-friendly

society. In that situation, older people have less need to become politically active

21

themselves. The more senior-unfriendly a society is, the more activated older people

seem to become to be politically active themselves.

Let us have a look at the differences in predicted probabilities between an

older person, here someone who is between 70 and 79, and a person younger than 50.

I have chosen two countries that are at opposite ends of the measure of helpfulness

towards older people in the sample: Sweden (where 85 percent of individuals are

prepared to do something for older people) and Great Britain (where that proportion

only stands at 55 percent). Table 3 lists the differences in predicted probability of

having some level of non-institutionalised political participation. It is the difference

between the probability of an average 70-79 year old due to his/her value on that

variable minus the probability of an average person younger than 50 due to his/her

value on that variable. A negative difference signifies that older people between 70

and 79 have a lower likelihood to be politically active than individuals younger than

50. The table lists (a) all variables the coefficients of which were significant at the

0.10 level in model 3 and (b) the interaction effect of the residual age dummies and

helpfulness towards older people. In both countries, the biggest difference comes

from the interaction term between helpfulness towards older people and residual age

dummies. In Britain, the effect is -13 percent. That means that – all other things that

vary between the two age groups being equal – older British people between 70 and

79 are still 13 percent less likely to participate in non-institutionalised forms of

political participation than British people younger than 50. In contrast, Sweden has a

difference of -23 percent in predicted differences.

Other age-related predictors of political participation only have a much smaller

impact of differences between older and younger people. Education, the second

largest impact factor, leads to a predicted difference of -3 and -6 percent. Some age-

22

related variables even have such a small impact that it is less than 1 percent. Only

two variables, political interest and political information, imply an advantage for

older people with regard to non-institutionalised participation over younger

individuals; that advantage is also minuscule with 1-2 percent.

With regard to the less resources and motivation hypothesis H2, we find that the

only impacts worth mentioning are internal political efficacy (3 percent) and logged

social networks (1 percent). The difference in political satisfaction can only explain

an impact of between 0 and 1 percent. Thus, although we fail to reject these two

hypotheses, they can hardly explain anything.

All these findings have made the gap between older and younger people even

more puzzling. The new variable of helpfulness towards older people can explain

how the size of the gap varies between countries, but is – with no cases in the sample

that we have – able to reduce the gap to zero. Even in Britain where the value of old

age culture is most conducive to political participation of older people, there remains

a sizeable gap. It could be that in Belarus, where helpfulness only stands at 8 percent

and which is not part of the regression sample, the gap would be zero or even

reversed.

How can we interpret the evidence on the impact of helpfulness towards older

people substantively? I argue that this variable is a proxy of the old age culture of a

country and measures how senior-friendly that society is. In more senior-friendly

societies, interests of older people are more being taken care of. As I demonstrate

next, the variations of this culture lie in differences of religious traditions, of welfare

state regimes, of economic development and of the demographic make-up. If the

variables of helpfulness towards older people is accepted as an indicator of the

senior-friendliness of a society, we must conclude that the second hypothesis H4b

23

about old age culture finds more evidence: the more senior-friendly a society is, the

less politically active are older people in that society relative to younger people with

all other things being equal. It seems that not stereotypes of old age are important,

but to what extent senior interests are already being taken care of.15 Thus, it is the

literature on political mobilisation and activation of social groups from which we can

learn more to explain the behaviour of older people. If this explanation is true, one

must also be able to show to what extent and how older people’s interests are more

or less taken care of in a given polity.

5 Empirical Part III: Exploring the roots of Old Age Culture in 16 European countries in 2000

To gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of helpfulness towards older people,

this section offers a further exploratory analysis of the original variable at the

individual level through which senior helpfulness was measured. This exploration is

not only important because of its empirical findings, but also because strengthens the

external validity of the measure of old age culture that we found to have such a

strong impact on political participation levels.

The dependent variable is coded 1 if respondents answered absolutely yes or yes

and 0 if they answered ‘maybe yes, maybe no’, ‘no’ or ‘absolutely no’ to the

question: ‘Would you be prepared to actually do something to improve the

conditions of elderly people in your country?’

[Insert table 4 here]

Table 4 presents four models, the first three of which have an equally good fit.

Each model includes gender (women are more likely to say yes), years of fulltime

education (positive effect) and age (positive effect) as individual-level control

variables. Model 1, the welfare regime model, divides the 16 countries, for which we

24

have data by welfare state regimes. The results suggest the following ordering of

welfare regimes with regard to their increasing effects on individual helpfulness

towards older people: post-communist, liberal, conservative, Southern European, and

Social-democratic.16

Model 2, the demographic and economic model, includes GDP per capita as a

measure of economic development; the proportion of people aged 65 in the populace

in order to capture the demographic weight of older people; the proportion of people

aged 65 at risk of poverty to control for variations on the material situation of older

people across Europe; and finally the proportion of gross wage that is paid towards

social security contribution for old age, survivor and disability pensions (employee

and employer together) in order to capture the nature of the pension finance system.

Individuals show – on average – higher levels of helpfulness in societies that are

economically more advanced, where there are more older people, where older people

are less at risk of being poor and where social security contributions are higher. The

positive effect of the pension contribution rate might lie in the presence of the

situation of retirement in people’s heads. The more they see goes into the pension

system, the more they might be aware of the issues of retirement and old age. The

positive effect of economic development might be explained with growing status of

old age at high stages of socio-economic modernisation (Cowgill and Holmes 1972).

The effects of pensioners’ poverty risk suggests that individuals are more likely to be

helpful in contexts where the need for help is low due to the good, objective material

situation of older people. Thus, the variable ‘helpfulness towards older people’ is not

measuring the echo of a situation where older people are in need of a lot of help.

Paradoxically, senior friendliness is higher in countries where there are fewer needy

older people.

25

Model 3, the cultural model, captures religious traditions with four variables: the

proportions of self-identified Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians and the

proportion of people who meet at church each week. In addition, the model includes

the interaction effects between these variables.17 In general, the higher the proportion

of any Christian denomination, the more older people are being valued. Catholic and

Protestant denominations, however, have a stronger influence than the presence of

Orthodox followers. Interestingly, the direct effect of the proportion of people who

weekly meet at church has a negative, direct effect. This could be the hidden effect of

economic development that is positively related to helpfulness as model 2 has shown

(it loses significance in the next model when economic development is included).

The interaction effects show that in societies with higher proportions of Catholics

and higher levels of church attendance also have higher levels of helpfulness towards

older people.

Whereas the previous three models were similar in their goodness-of-fit, the best

fit can be reached with a composite model that incorporates models 2 and 3.

Implicitly, this also incorporates the welfare regime model 1, the variables of which

can be predicted well by the other variables. In the composite model, the contribution

rate and religious attendance (and its interaction with Protestant population) lose

significance. Old age culture of a country – as measured by helpfulness towards

older people – is a multi-factorial phenomenon. In temporal sequence, there seem to

be two stages of causal impact. The historical traditions of religion, which are still

reflected in the distribution of religious adherents, play an important role. Countries

that are still dominated by higher proportions of Christian populations show a

stronger helpfulness towards older people. This effect is even stronger – especially

with regard to practising Catholics – if religious practice is linked with these

26

religious traditions. Causally more recent, we can detect the importance of the

current economic situation of the society as a whole and of older people in particular

to have an influence. Woven into this narrative are the differences between welfare

traditions. For example, the presence of Catholic traditions in Conservative welfare

states manifests itself in welfare policies being derived from the Catholic teachings

of social policy. Also, reformed Protestantism might play a role to explain parts of

the welfare state developments (Manow 2002).

In conclusion then, we find exploratory evidence for the importance of old age

culture, measured through the helpfulness towards older people, for individuals older

than 60. Even when we control for all other social characteristics that could explain

differences between younger and older people, there remains a gap that can partially

be accounted for by this proxy of old age culture.

6 Conclusions

I subjected three conventional hypotheses about lower participation rates among

older people to empirical tests with European data. Also, I explored evidence for two

contending hypotheses on the impact of the old age culture of a country on political

participation at old age. The evidence supports all three conventional hypotheses, but

suggests that only the normalisation hypothesis and – the newly formulated – old age

culture explanation are of real relevance to explain the data.

Older people in Europe have less resources and motivation to participate in

non-institutionalised participation. According to the literature, the source of these

differences lies in the nature of the life cycle. Older people are also more satisfied

with politics than middle-aged people. But these two hypotheses can explain little in

the predicted differences between age groups. Independent of other macro social

27

changes, older generations caught up with regard to non-institutionalised forms of

participation, so that the ‘normalisation’ of protests and protesters and further closing

of the gap between age groups can be expected.

Part of the gap that we see at present can be ascribed to the old age culture of

a society. In countries where many people support the idea of helping older people,

older people are less active in politics than in other countries where this idea finds

less support (and all other things are held constant). I explored the roots of this old

age culture further for 16 European countries and found them to lie in welfare state

and religious traditions, the state of the economy and the nature of the pension

system. Most interestingly, individuals are more supportive of the idea of helping

older people where the danger of old age poverty is low. Also, more religious

Catholic societies show a higher probability of citizens expressing their willingness

to help older people.

The contribution towards the literature is twofold. Firstly, studies of political

participation and differences between age group must systematically analyse the

image and context of the age group that is being studied. Whereas studies of youth

and political participation are more prevalent, the demographic development actually

points towards the necessity to look at the context of old age. Secondly, the still

scarce but growing literature on politics in an ageing world (e.g. Peterson 1999)

should have a closer look distortions of participatory equality between age groups in

one and between older people across societies. Fortunately, the evidence presented

here seems to suggest that older people are more active in non-institutionalised

channels of political participation where they are fewer people who want to help

them.

28

Further research should go along various avenues. We need much more refined

measures of the old age culture of European societies and need to pay close attention

to the causal links that exist between these cultures and political behaviour of older

people. This can be achieved in man ways: focus group works, vignette surveys and

experimental analysis. In general, there needs to be put much more effort into doing

‘political gerontology’ in European political science as it was demanded for the

United States already thirty years ago (see Cutler 1977).

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1 This is a literal quotation from an interview with a 79 year old in a different part of the research project. 2 These categorical definitions of age groups are only created for the empirical analysis. I argue that the changes in participation that associated with age are gradual, rather than categorical. 3 Unfortunately, it is not possible to make a full-fledged multivariate analysis of the accumulated World Values Series because there are too few points in time. 4 Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden. 5 Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain. 6 Note that the question wording leads to uneven periods of time that respondents can have committed the action in. Someone who is 70 years old has probably 55 years in which she could commit a certain political action whereas someone who is 18 only has around three years. Therefore, the measured participation level is distorted in favour of older respondents, and we need to take that into consideration when interpreting the results. 7 Non-institutionalised forms of participation grew out of the university milieu in the 1960s and 1970s, so that the higher educated younger people in 1981 probably still belonged to this cohort of explorers. 8 At first sight, it seems odd that the educational sub-groups show no differences between age groups whereas the general groups do. This is the effect of looking at differences and the fact that lower educated individuals are much more dominant in the group older people whereas higher educated are more dominant among the group of young people. 9 It has got a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.68, showing us that there is an underlying latent phenomenon. The distribution is skewed towards zero, meaning that an ordinal regression is preferable over alternative methods of regression. 10 Here, it is only relevant to have a proxy that can capture the main variance between countries and still allows for the inclusion of further macro variables. Interaction effects between this variable and the age dummies were not significant. 11 There are various reasons why someone should state to be willing to help. It is interesting to note, but too lengthy to report here in full that the underlying reasons seem to correlate. In the WVS, respondents who indicated that they would be willing to do something for older people were given a series of statements why someone should do something for older people. The reasons included: to do something in return, it is in the interest of society, it is in my interest, it is one’s moral duty to help. Respondents were given the chance to rate each item on a 5 point agree-disagree scale. Correlation and principal component analyses show that respondents seem either to tend to agree with many reasons or with few reasons. The evidence does not point to several, but one underlying dimension why older people should be helped. Thus, it seems that there is only one qualitative dimension of ‘helpfulness’ towards older people. These results can be obtained from the author. 12 The reason for this variance might lie in the social capital explanation that older generations are still more involved in organisations (expected positive correlation with age). When this effect adds to the expected negative correlation, a variety of results could be expected. 13 I rain regressions with age and age squared on an index of political satisfaction. Tables are obtainable from the author. 14 The relatively high p values in this context point towards the fact that the variation in political participation levels within a given level of helpfulness are strong. But this is an exploratory analysis

32

that has to make use of secondary sources. This strategy warrants to accept higher p values for totally new, untested hypotheses. 15 Thereby, it is not the individual material situation that matters because household income has been included at the individual level. 16 Unfortunately, the dummies for liberal and Social-democratic only represent one country each (Britain and Finland) because other cases do not have values for all macro variables. 17 Note that the interaction effect between religious attendance and orthodox Christians is missing. It correlates highly negatively with the interaction effect of Catholics and religious attendance and has an overall worse fit with the data.

33

Figure 1a-d: Overtime trend of non-institutionalised participation in Western Europe 1981-2000, 50+ age group minus 16-29 year olds

-15 -15

-8

-23

-14

1

-7-8

1

-25

-20

-15

-10

-5

0

5

1981 1990 1999

All High education Low education

-15 -15

-8

-16

-21

-12-13

-7

-3

-25

-20

-15

-10

-5

0

5

1981 1990 1999

All Female Male

34

-15 -15

-8

-17

-14

-5

-13-14

-9

-25

-20

-15

-10

-5

0

5

1981 1990 1999

All High org. involvement Low org. involvement

-15 -15

-8

-10

-14

-11

-15-14

-6

-25

-20

-15

-10

-5

0

5

1981 1990 1999

All High religiosity Low religiosity

Source: own calculations from the World Values Survey 1981-2000, 10 West European countries: Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, (West) Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, and Sweden.

35

Table 1: Correlations of individual-level independent variables with age Independent Variables

Confirmed bivariate association with age

Pearson’s r Lack of resources and motivation (H1) Social embeddedness Social networks Elderly people have on average fewer social networks because they do

not replace lost friends with new ones (Wagner, Schütze, and Lang 1999).

-0.01* (overall) Between 0.07*** (Finland) and

-0.12*** (Slovenia) Living with partner Divorce and widowhood occur more frequently at a higher age. -0.39*** (+) Number of minor children in household

Decreases with higher age. -0.38*** (+)

Embeddedness in work sphere

Employment status Older people are more likely to be retired. -0.30*** (employed) -0.02*** (self-employed)

Pension as main source of income

0.64***

Income The income of retirees is in general lower than that of the middle-aged. However, newer cohorts of seniors have accumulated increasingly higher pensions.

-0.11***

Good health Subjective evaluation of health

Deteriorates with age. -0.38***

Efficacy Internal political efficacy Elderly people feel less politically efficacious because of internalised

social stereotyping towards old age (Kruse and Schmitt 2006). -0.06***

Less political dissatisfaction (H2) Political satisfaction General satisfaction

The older we get, the lower our aspirations get and the easier we are satisfied (Herzog and Rodgers 1986). In addition, newer cohorts are less satisfied with formal politics (Dalton 2004).

0.01 -0.03*

Further age-related control variables Education The mass expansion of higher levels of education occurred only three to

four decades ago. 0.22***

Postmaterialism Post-war value change towards greater interest in self-actualisation (Inglehart 1990).

-0.15***

Religiosity Societal process of secularisation in Europe since the 1960s (Wilson 1966).

0.18***

Left-right self-placement (where higher values are further to the right)

Voters are socialised into ideology when they are young. The ‘average’ position can change over time.

0.09***

Size of town Depending on the degree of urbanisation and path of industrial development, older cohorts can live in more rural regions.

-0.04***

Experience of democracy before the age of 30

In some countries, older people differ from younger people in having not experienced a free democracy at youth (such as Spain). The lack of democratic experience during the early socialisation period can make adults subsequently less participatory (see for the persistence of early political socialisation Alwin, Cohen, and Newcomb 1991).

Between -0.83*** (Slovenia) and 0.00 (e.g. Britain)

Gender Men have a shorter average life span; women could be socialised into thinking that politics is a male domain (Welch 1977).

n/a

Duration of residence The older you are, the longer you have lived in certain area. 0.52*** Political interest, political information

Older people concentrate their interests on fewer areas. On average, politics is one of them (Glenn and Grimes 1968). Newer cohorts show less interest in politics (see for example Britain Henn, Weinstein, and Wring 2002). Use of media to get political information follows the same reasoning.

0.07** (interest) 0.19*** (information)

Membership of parties and trade unions

Older cohorts are more likely to be party and trade union members (Mair and van Biezen 2001; Widfeldt 1995). However, the latter type of membership is tied to professional life

0.03***

+ correlation with age squared, all correlations weighted by demographic weight and/or design weight. ** */**/* significant at 0.001 (0.01) (0.05) level, coding in the appendix.

36

Figure 2: Variance of helpfulness towards older people

833

4150

5556

57585859

60606060

6363

65666666

6767

6869

7173

7780

8185

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

BelarusEstoniaUkraineRussia

Great BritainLatviaSpain

FranceLuxembourg

AustriaPortugalHungaryBulgaria

GermanyNetherlandsCzech Rep.

SloveniaBelgiumGreece

LithuaniaDenmarkRomania

PolandSlovakiaFinlandIcelandCroatia

ItalyIreland

Sweden

% who agreed to be prepared to do something for older people

Countries that are also in the ESS regressions are in bold.

Median

37

Table 2: Ordinal regression models non-institutionalised political participation Dependent variable: index of non-institutionalised political participation

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Coef. p-value Coef. p-value Coef. p-value Average non-instit. participation 1.714*** 0.000 1.155*** 0.000 1.183*** 0.000 Helpfulness towards older people 0.01 0.372 Helpfulness X Age 50-59 -0.008 0.322 Helpfulness X Age 60-69 -0.041* 0.040 Helpfulness X Age 70-79 -0.026 0.106 Helpfulness X Age 80+ -0.026 0.075 Age 16-49 0.00 0.000 0.000 Age 50-59 -0.053 0.536 -0.100 0.273 -0.120* 0.047 Age 60-69 -0.306* 0.047 -0.299 0.150 -0.423*** 0.001 Age 70-79 -0.863*** 0.000 -0.621*** 0.002 -0.693*** 0.000 Age 80+ -1.255*** 0.000 -0.816*** 0.000 -0.884*** 0.000 Less resources and motivation hypothesis Social networks (logged) 0.781*** 0.000 0.786*** 0.000 Internal political efficacy 0.227*** 0.000 0.229*** 0.000 Living with partner -0.010 0.882 -0.009 0.891 Number of minor children in household 0.015 0.632 0.019 0.590 Employed -0.059 0.131 -0.054 0.158 Self-employed 0.189 0.097 0.187 0.126 Pension main source of income 0.012 0.844 -0.006 0.913 Household income -0.017 0.206 -0.016 0.224 Health 0.015 0.756 0.015 0.763 Lesser dissatisfaction hypothesis Political satisfaction -0.038*** 0.003 -0.038*** 0.004 General satisfaction -0.009 0.442 -0.01 0.415 Further controls Education 0.158*** 0.000 0.158*** 0.000 Postmaterialism 0.227*** 0.000 0.230*** 0.000 Religiosity -0.011 0.197 -0.013 0.111 Left-right self placement -0.093*** 0.000 -0.095*** 0.000 Size of town 0.057* 0.031 0.059* 0.019 Experience of Democracy before the age of 30 0.250 0.153 0.247 0.183 Female -0.247*** 0.000 -0.250*** 0.000 Duration of residence 0.018 0.609 0.018 0.616 Political interest 0.414*** 0.000 0.412*** 0.000 Political information (logged) 0.187* 0.026 0.194* 0.019 Political membership 0.353*** 0.000 0.347*** 0.000 Constant 1.766*** 0.000 2.336*** 0.000 2.336*** 0.000 Constant 2.611*** 0.000 3.331*** 0.000 3.333*** 0.000 Constant 3.329*** 0.000 4.155*** 0.000 4.158*** 0.000 Constant 4.226*** 0.000 5.164*** 0.000 5.168*** 0.000 Constant 5.348*** 0.000 6.406*** 0.000 6.412*** 0.000 Constant 6.439*** 0.000 7.557*** 0.000 7.564*** 0.000 Observations 34,802 26,901 26,901 Pseudo R² 0.042 0.108 0.109

***/**/* = significant at .001/ .01 / .005 level, standard errors clustered by country.

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Table 3: Differences in predicted probabilities of having at least some level of non-institutionalised participation between someone aged 70-79 and someone younger than 50, Great Britain and Sweden

Great Britain (helpfulness lowest)

Sweden (helpfulness highest)

Old age culture X age dummies -13% -23%

Education -3% -6%

Internal political efficacy -1% -3%

Political membership -1% -2%

Left-right placement -1% -1%

Postmaterialism 0% -1%

Religiosity 0% -1%

Political satisfaction 0% -1%

Social networks (logged) 0% -1%

Size of town 0% 0%

Political interest 1% 1%

Political information (logged) 1% 2%

All other variables held constant at their overall means.

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Table 4: Logistic regression models of willingness to help older people Dependent variable: personal willingness to help older people

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Coef. p-value Coef. p-value Coef. p-value Coef. p-value Individual level variables Education 0.013*** 0.001 0.019*** 0.000 0.017*** 0.000 0.021*** 0.000 Age 0.015*** 0.000 0.014*** 0.000 0.015*** 0.000 0.015*** 0.000 Female 0.213*** 0.000 0.222*** 0.000 0.214*** 0.000 0.223*** 0.000 Welfare regime types Postcommunist -0.253*** 0.000 Liberal -0.188* 0.023 Conservative 0.00 Southern European 0.432*** 0.000 Social-democratic 0.595*** 0.000 Economic and demographic variables 65+ population 0.112*** 0.000 0.142*** 0.000 Risk of old age poverty -0.010*** 0.002 -0.030*** 0.000 Pension contribution rate 0.040*** 0.000 0.007 0.171 GDP per capita 1999 0.000*** 0.000 0.000*** 0.000 Religion macro variables Catholics 0.009*** 0.000 0.008*** 0.000 Protestants 0.009*** 0.000 0.007*** 0.000 Orthodox 0.009*** 0.000 0.011*** 0.000 Religious attendance -0.031*** 0.000 -0.008 0.287 Catholics X rel. attend. 0.001*** 0.000 0.001*** 0.000 Protestants X rel. attend. 0.000 0.348 0.000 0.642 Constant -0.647*** 0.000 -3.531*** 0.000 -0.707*** 0.000 -3.014*** 0.000 Observations 20,402 20,402 20,402 20,402 Pseudo R² 0.024 0.023 0.023 0.036

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APPENDIX Description of variables Variable Name Min Max Mean SD Values Question wording in survey Comments Index 0 6 0.87 1.30 See text

Age dummies In what year were you born? Age calculated by 2002-answer

Duration of residence, logged

0 4.60 2.85 0.99 E28: How long have you lived in this area?

To overcome heteroscedasticity, natural logarithm of the original value

Education 0 6 2.84 1.50 0 = not completed primary education, 1 = Primary or first stage of basic education 2 = Lower secondary or second stage of basic 3 = Upper secondary 4 = Post secondary, non-tertiary5 = First stage of tertiary 6 = Second stage of tertiary

What is the highest level of education you have achieved?

Gender 0 1 0.47 0.50 0 = female, 1 = male Coded by interviewer

Income 1 12 5.89 2.38 1-12 Scale If you add up the income from all sources, which letter (show card) describes your household’s total net income? If you don’t know the exact figure, please give an estimate. Use part of the card that you know best: weekly, monthly or annual income: scale 1-12

Internal political efficacy

-1.96 2.55 0.00 1.00 low value = low level of political efficacy

B2: How often does politics seem so complicated that you can’t really understand what is going on? Never, seldom, occasionally, regularly, frequently B3: Do you think that you could take an active role in a group involved with political issues? Definitely not, probably not, not sure either way, probably, definitely B4: How difficult or easy do you find it to make your mind up about political issues? Very difficult, difficult, neither difficult, nor easy, easy, very easy

One factor Principal Component Solution: 57 % of variance explained. Pairwise deletion of missing data. Missing values replaced by mean. To overcome heteroscedasticity, natural logarithm of original values with minimum set to 1

Living with partner

0 1 0.61 0.49 0 = otherwise, 1 = yes Original variable: partner

Number of minor children in household

0 10 0.72 1.03 F3: In what year was she/he born [all current members of household]?

Added up number of people under the age of 18 living in household

Pension main source of income

0 1 0.26 0.44 F29: Please consider the income of all household members and any income which may be received by the household as a whole. What is the main source of income in your household? Please use this card. Wages and salaries, income from self-employment or farming, pensions, unemployment/redundancy benefit/ any other social benefits or grants, income from investment, savings,

Coded 1 if pensions mentioned, 0 otherwise.

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insurance or property, income from other sources.

Political interest 0 3 1.40 0.91 0 = not interested at all,..., 3 = very interested

How interested would you say you are in politics? Are very interested, quite i., hardly i., not at all i.?

Religiosity 0 10 5.04 2.96 0 = not religious at all, …, 10 = very religious

C13: Regardless of whether you belong to a particular religion, how religious would you say you are? Please use this card.

Social networks, logged

0 2.40 0.53 0.57 0 = none, ... E1-12b: Do you have personal friends within this organisation? Sports club/club for outdoor activities, an organisation for cultural or hobby activities, a business, professional or farmer’s organisation, a consumer or automobile organisation, an organisation for environmental protection, peace or animal rights, a religious or church organisation, an organisation for science, education, or teachers and parents, a social club for the young/the retired/elderly, women or friendly societies, any other voluntary organisation such as the ones I’ve just mentioned

Each organisation that was not a trade union, humanitarian aid, an organisation for human rights, minorities or immigrants, party was counted as one and added up To overcome heteroscedasticity, natural logarithm of (number +1)

Subjective evaluation of health

0 4 2.81 0.92 0 = very bad, 1= bad, 2= fair, 3 = good, 4 = very good

How is your health [physical and mental health] in general?

Trade union and party membership

0 2 0.26 0.47 0 = no membership, 1 = membership of trade union or party, 2 = membership of party and trade union

E3, E9

Employment status (employed, self-employed, not in paid work)

E29: Can I just check? Are you currently: Employed, self-employed, not in paid work, don’t know

Employed and self-employed were coded to be two dummies

Left-right self-placement

0 10 5.05 2.13 0 = very leftist,…, 10 = very rightist

B28: In politics people sometimes talk of “left” and “right” on this scale. Using this card, where would you place yourself where 0 means the left and 10 means the right.

political information, logged

0 3.09 1.75 0.35 0 = no time at all, 1 = less than ½ hour, 2 = ½ hour to 1 hour, 3 = more than 1 hour, up to 1 1/2 hour, 4 = more than 2 hours, 5 = up to 2 ½ hours, 6 = more than 2 ½ hours, up to 3 hours, 7 = more than 3 hours, don’t know

A2, A4, A6: And again on an average weekday, how much of your time watching television/listening to the radio/reading is spent watching/listening to/reading the news or programmes about politics and current affairs? Still use this card

Scores added up, took natural logarithm of value added by 1.

Post-materialism -2 2 -0.05 0.51 Male and female respondents received separate self-completion sheets (GS1/GS2): Here we briefly describe some people. Please read each description tick the box on each line that shows how much each person is or is not like you. E: It is important for her/him

If respondents answered E or N (F or S) with not like me or not like me at all, they got a 0, otherwise –1 (+1). Then the scores were added up to span from –2 to + 2. N/A for Hungary or

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to live in safe surroundings. F: He/she likes surprises and is always looking for new things to do. He/she thinks it is important to do lots of different things in life. N: It is important to him/her that the government ensures his/her safety against all threats. He/she wants the state to be strong so it can defend its citizens. S: He/she strongly believes that people should care for nature. Looking after the environment is important to him/her. Very much like me, like me, somewhat like me, a little like me, not like me, not like me at all.

Italy Missing values replaced by mean.

subjective religiosity

0 10 5.04 2.96 0 = not religious at all, 10 = very religious

C13: Regardless of whether you belong to a particular religion, how religious would you say you are? Please use this card

size of town 1 5 3.06 1.20 1 = a farm of home in the countryside, 2 = a country village, 3 = a town or small village, 4 = the suburbs or outskirts of a big city, 5 = a big city

F5: which phrase on this card best describes the area where you live?

Political satisfaction

0 20 9.74 4.25 B31: Now thinking about the [country] government, how satisfied are you with the way it is doing its job? Still use this card. B32: And on the whole, how satisfied are you with the way democracy works in [country]? Still use this card.

Added up the two coded answers.

General satisfaction

0 20 11.59 3.91 B29: All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole nowadays? Please answer using this card, where 0 means extremely dissatisfied and 10 means extremely satisfied. B30: On the whole how satisfied are you with the present state of the economy in [country]? Still use this card.

Added up the two coded answers.

World Values Survey (Part 3)

16 countries

Helpfulness towards older people 0 1 0.61 0.49

1=absolutely yes, yes, 0=maybe yes/maybe no, no, absolutely no, don’t know

E165: Would you be prepared to actually do something to improve the conditions of elderly people in your country?

Age at which FT education ended 5 74 18.46 4.99

In years X023: At what age did you (or will you) complete your full time education, either at school or at an institution of higher education? Please exclude apprenticeships

Age 15 98 45.46 17.34 X003: This means you are

XX years old.

Gender 1 2 1.54 0.50 1=male, 2=female X002: Coded by the

interviewer

Welfare state regimes

1=conservative, 2=Social-Democratic, 3=liberal, 4=post-communist, 5=Southern

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European

Contribution rate towards pensions 16.36 34.75 24.83 5.40

Percentage (insured person and employer)

Contribution rate for social security programme (old age, disability, survivor)

(Social Security Association 2002: table 4)

Percentage of older people at risk of poverty in 2000-3 4 30 17.66 7.71

Percentage of 65+ population below poverty line

(European Commission 2006: table 1.1)

(below 60 % of median income)

Percentage of population 65+ in 1999 12.3 18.2 15.65 1.54

(Council of Europe 2001: T1.6)

GDP per capita 3078 26340 17204.87 8389.88 In US Dollars United Nations Common

Database

Percentage of Catholics (centred around zero) -50.07 43.93 0.00 31.28

Percentage who identified themselves as Roman Catholics, Catholics and Greek Catholics

WVS F025: Do you belong to a religious denomination? Which one?

Percentage of Protestants (centred around zero) -11.39 72.61 0.00 21.32

Percentage who identified themselves as Protestants or Anglicans

WVS F025: Do you belong to a religious denomination? Which one?

Percentage of Orthodox Christians (centred around zero) -8.38 14.32 0.00 5.72

Percentage who identified themselves as Orthodox Christians

WVS F025: Do you belong to a religious denomination? Which one?

Percentage of population that meets other people at church, mosque or synagogue every week (centred around zero) -5.53 87.47 0.00 20.24

Percentatge who answered ‚weekly’

WVS A060: I’m going to ask how often you do certain things. For each activity, would you say you do them every week or nearly every week; once or twice a month; only a few times a year, or not at all? Spend time with people at your church, mosque or synagogue.

Interaction term Catholics X worship (centred around zero) -271.94 553.51 0.00 177.04

Interaction term Protestants X worship (centred around zero) -150.54 109.20 0.00 71.74