The effect of political generations on electoral participation. The case of Chile, 1999-2013

Given the succession of democratic interruptions in Latin America in the decades of the 60s and 70s, and the end of authoritarian regimes in the 80s, the region is in a good laboratory to explore the effect of political generations on voter turnout. We show this effect in the context of compulsory voting and voluntary voting. By multivariate statistical analysis of pre-election polls from 1999 to 2013 in Chile, we conclude that, unlike Europe, Canada and United States generational effect on participation is reduced over the years. We note that compulsory voting age, political generation, ideological identification and even —in some cases— the socioeconomic status of respondents are robust predictors of participation. With voluntary voting, however, these predictors disappear, surviving only the effect of ideological identification and, very partially, age interacting with the political generation of respondents