The household effect on electoral participation

François Buton (1) , Claire Lemercier (2) , Nicolas Mariot (3)

1 CEPEL - Centre d'Etudes Politiques de l'Europe Latine
2 CSO - Centre de sociologie des organisations (Sciences Po, CNRS)
3 CESSP - Centre européen de sociologie et de science politique

We use electoral participation data coded from signature lists to show that patterns of voter turnout, be they related to average participation, versatility or precise moments of voting, are strongly related to what we call “electorate households”, i.e. groups of voters registered in the same polling station and living together. Each household tends to be homogeneous, at levels much higher than chance would explain, so that modelling individual participation without taking this household effect into account ignores much of what actually happens. The status in the household also plays an important role among individual factors of voter participation. Not only do people who live together often participate together, but the precise shape of their relationships influences their behaviour.

Keywords: Households; Voting; Voter participation; Multilevel analysis

Domains: Sociology; Political science

François Buton, Claire Lemercier, Nicolas Mariot. The household effect on electoral participation: A contextual analysis of voter signatures from a French polling station (1982-2007). Electoral Studies, 2012, 31 (2), pp.434-447. ⟨10.1016/j.electstud.2011.11.010⟩. ⟨hal-01445985v2⟩