This study asks whether starting to cohabit with a partner changes individual voter turnout and uses a large administrative dataset to compare turnout before and after couples move in together. The authors' central contribution is an empirical comparison that leverages timing: households that begin cohabiting just before an election are compared to those that begin just after, allowing assessment of turnout changes associated with taking up shared residence.
Administrative voter records Cohabitation timing comparison Robust turnout increase (3.5–10.6 pp)
The analysis draws on a large administrative dataset with validated turnout and recorded timing of when individuals move in together. The design rests on comparing two-voter households who begin cohabiting immediately before an election with otherwise comparable households who begin immediately after the election. The abstract reports additional robustness checks, including benchmarking against singles who move, though it does not list full model formulas in the summary.
The authors report a substantial and robust increase in turnout in the months after cohabitation. Depending on specification, the abstract gives increases ranging from 3.5 to 10.6 percentage points. The mobilization effect is described as occurring regardless of either partner's prior turnout in a preceding election, and results hold across several robustness checks.
| Living Together, Voting Together: Voters Moving in Together Before an Election Have Higher Turnout was authored by Jens Olav Dahlgaard, Yosef Bhatti, Jonas Hedegaard Hansen and Kasper M. Hansen. It was published by Cambridge in BJPS in 2022. |
