Chips off the old blocks? The political participation patterns of parents and children in Italy

• Published in: Social science research 2015-03, Vol.50, p.264-276
• Main Authors: Dotti Sani, Giulia M., Quaranta, Mario
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Children; Children & youth; Everyday life; Father-Child Relations; Female; History of medicine and histology; Humans; Italy; Male; Mother-Child Relations - psychology; Parent educational background; Parenting - psychology; Parents; Parents–children similarity; Political behavior; Political participation; Political socialization; Politics; Probability; Sex Factors; Transmission of participation; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0049-089X; 1096-0317
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2014.12.002

•We study parents–children similarity in political participation in Italy.•Negative Binomial models are applied to 12,802 children and their parents.•Parents’ and children’s participation are strongly associated.•Mothers’ participation matters more than fathers’ for children’s participation.•Parental education is unrelated to children’s participation. This article studies the relationship between the political participation of parents and children in Italy, a country for which no empirical evidence on the topic is available and that has particular characteristics in terms of household dynamics and patterns of political participation. The analyses are based on a sample of 12,802 children from 14 to 19years old and their parents, drawn from the “Multipurpose survey – Aspects of daily life”, collected by the Italian National Institute of Statistics. The results show that the political participation of children is strongly associated with that of their parents; that maternal participation is of somewhat greater relevance to the participation of both sons and daughters compared to that of fathers; and that the parents’ level of education is not associated with the likelihood of the child participating, net of parental participation.