Does lowering the voting age spark meaningful political participation among young people? Using a quasi-experiment from Ghent, Belgium where youth could vote starting at 16, this research compares adolescents granted voting rights with those just below the age cutoff. Data & Methods
We analyze survey data collected before and after the implementation of the vote-at-16 policy in Ghent.
Key Findings
* Eligibility increased attention to politics among 16-year-olds.
* However, this did not translate into significantly higher overall political engagement compared to those just below 18 years old.
The findings suggest that while formal voting rights at 16 may draw adolescents' interest temporarily or towards certain aspects of politics, they do not necessarily lead to broader involvement in the political process. This nuance is important for understanding how adolescent political attitudes evolve around specific eligibility thresholds.
| Voting at 16: Does Lowering the Voting Age Lead to More Political Engagement? Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment in the City of Ghent (Belgium) was authored by Dieter Stiers, Marc Hooghe and Ruth Dassonneville. It was published by Cambridge in PSR&M in 2021. |
