With the 2000 presidential election just around the corner, the characteristics of voters are being analyzed and reanalyzed by political pundits and pollsters. Little attention, though, has been given to the 71 million U.S. children under age 18 who have no direct voice in the outcome of the election but who will be just as directly affected by the election results as their parents. Although it is commonly assumed that children's political interests are reflected in the votes cast by their parents, this assumption depends on parents' exercising their vote.
Most voters are not parents. Of the 105 million adults who voted in the 1996 presidential election, 71 million were adults without any children under age 18 in the household. Even if all of the 66 million parents had voted in the election of 1996, the nonparents who voted would have outnumbered them. Not only do nonparents outnumber parents, but data also show that among all adults, nonparents register and vote at slightly higher rates than parents: 55 percent of nonparents reported voting in the 1996 presidential election, compared with only 52 percent of parents. The difference between parents and nonparents is largely due to age differences between the two groups. Most parents are in the 20-to-49 age range (60 million of the 66 million people defined here as parents), and Census Bureau data show that older people are more likely to vote than people ages 20 to 49.
If one looks only at citizens in the prime parental ages (20 to 49), the relationship between parenthood and voter turnout is the opposite of that among all potential voters. Among citizens ages 20 to 49, 57 percent of parents reported voting in 1996, compared with only 50 percent of those without children.
The major reason people give for not voting is time pressure, and the impact of time pressure is reflected in the interaction of political participation and family structure. Among citizens ages 20 to 49, 54 percent of parents who were part of a married couple voted in 1996, compared with only 43 percent of single parents. As a result, children in single-parent families are much less likely to have their interests represented than are those living in married-couple families. In addition to the added time pressure on single parents, the higher voter turnout among married parents is due in part to certain characteristics of married couples that are related to higher levels of political participation, such as higher income, higher education, and higher home ownership.
There is a strong relationship between socioeconomic status and voter turnout among parents. Low-income parents vote at much lower rates than higher-income parents. About one-third of parents in the poorest families (annual income under $10,000) voted. On the other hand, nearly three-quarters of parents in wealthier families (annual income above $50,000 a year) voted. Clearly the interests of middle- and upper-income kids are reflected much better at the ballot box than are the interests of poor kids. Education also affects voter turnout. Parents who graduated from college are more than three times as likely to vote as parents who did not finish high school (79 percent for college graduates compared with 25 percent for high school dropouts).
Some simple measures could be implemented to facilitate political participation among parents. Because parents are more likely to be constrained by time than nonparents, keeping polls open longer, putting them in more convenient locations, and providing easier access to absentee ballots may increase voter turnout among parents.
