When life happens: the impact of life events on turnout

Abstract

Habit is among the most influential explanations for why people vote. Scholars have addressed the impact of individual disruptions to habitual voting, but analyses including several life events are rare. We combine two panel surveys, conducted in the UK during 1991-2017, to examine the impact of unemployment, retirement, changes in partnership status, moving and disability on voting. We distinguish between habitual voters, occasional voters and habitual non-voters. For all voter groups, turnout declines with divorce. For other life events, the impacts diverge across the voter groups. Overall, the findings suggest that social connections are the strongest underlying mechanisms explaining the changes. Although the results support the voting habit thesis, they also suggest that previous research has overstated the persistence of voting habits. The results revise some of the canonical findings by demonstrating that the impact of life events differs across people with different voting habits and across different life events.