Country Roads, Take Me to the Polls: Does Youth Voter Turnout Vary Between Urban and Rural Settings?

Abstract

This thesis investigates whether or not urban-dwelling youth voters in Western democracies possess a universal voter turnout advantage compared to their non-urban peers. Utilizing the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) integrated module dataset that consists of historical election study data from over 230 electoral studies that took place across about 59 jurisdictions between 1996 and 2021, the study employs country and year fixed-effect logistic regression models with interaction terms to test this relationship. The results reveal that there is no evidence of a universal voter turnout advantage for urban youth voters. Rather, it appears that any turnout advantage along the urban/rural divide found in a given country is a result of country-specific contextual factors. These findings also suggest that traditional micro-level factors, such as education, remain the dominant drivers of voter participation across all age cohorts. Consequently, the thesis concludes by stating that any electoral reforms or get-out-the-vote initiatives must focus on these country-specific contexts, rather than simply relying on urban density and resources to foster youth electoral participation.