Long-term socialization patterns are considered a key explanation for socio-economic inequalities in political participation. Material conditions in youth and childhood are assumed to contribute to rather stable trajectories of political apathy or involvement and lay the foundations for unequal participation from before voting age and far into adulthood. However, our understanding of when such inequalities begin to become noticeable, the importance of parental socio-economic status as opposed to personal socio-economic status, and potential long-term consequences is still limited. We address these issues using the youth questionnaire of the UK Household Longitudinal Study. We show that material deprivation in childhood is negatively related to turnout in young adults’ first election in which they are eligible to vote. This result holds when we control for an unusually exhaustive list of potential confounders, such as psychological childhood characteristics, parental–political interest and education, present material conditions, mental health, and future educational degrees. Our results, hence, suggest that—while personal socio-economic experiences in early adulthood are not irrelevant—socio-economic family background has an independent effect on political participation.

中文翻译：

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童年时期的物质匮乏与不平等的政治社会化：儿童经济困难与未来投票的关系

长期的社会化模式被认为是政治参与中社会经济不平等的一个关键解释。青年和儿童时期的物质条件被认为有助于政治冷漠或参与的相当稳定的轨迹，并为从投票年龄之前到成年的不平等参与奠定基础。然而，我们对这种不平等何时开始变得明显、父母社会经济地位相对于个人社会经济地位的重要性以及潜在的长期后果的理解仍然有限。我们使用英国家庭纵向研究的青年问卷来解决这些问题。我们表明，童年时期的物质匮乏与年轻人第一次有资格投票的选举中的投票率呈负相关。当我们控制了一份异常详尽的潜在混杂因素清单时，这一结果仍然成立，例如心理童年特征、父母的政治兴趣和教育、目前的物质条件、心理健康和未来的教育程度。因此，我们的结果表明——虽然成年早期的个人社会经济经历并非无关紧要——社会经济家庭背景对政治参与有独立的影响。