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Life-Cycle Transitions and Political Participation: The Case of Marriage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 1995

Laura Stoker  and
M. Kent Jennings
Laura Stoker
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
M. Kent Jennings
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara; University of Michigan
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Abstract

We investigate the consequences of changes in marital status for political participation, treating marital status as marking points of continuity and transition in an individual's life history and marriage as a setting that fosters interaction and interdependence between marital partners. The analysis is based on panel and pseudopanel data from the 1965–82 socialization study of parents, offspring, and spouses. We find that marital transitions affect participation in four ways: (1) marital partners adjust their activity levels to become more like each other after marriage; (2) marital transitions of any type, especially marriage among younger people, tend to depress participation; (3) the overall effect of marriage, however, is powerfully mediated by the participation level of the partner; and (4) these mediation effects are greatest for political activities that involve collective efforts or draw upon the couple's joint resources.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 89 , Issue 2 , June 1995 , pp. 421 - 433
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1995

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