A track too far? The effect of general versus vocational upper secondary education on voter turnout

Abstract

Despite the wealth of research on how education affects political participation, there are few studies that successfully identify the effects of different types of education or different educational tracks. In this article, using a regression discontinuity (RD) design, we present evidence on how electoral participation is affected by pursuing a general (academic) versus a vocational programme in upper secondary education. These two pathways represent a fundamental educational differentiation in most European countries. By exploiting Swedish register data and the admission process for upper secondary education, we provide robust support for causal inference. In contrast to previous research, we do not find positive effects from attending a general programme on voter turnout. In fact, in our RD analysis, our estimates suggest negative effects. This analysis focuses on students who apply for general and vocational programmes – a group with average academic skills. The negative effects appear related to that these students perform poorly in general programmes and risk dropping out. Furthermore, in a population-level analysis relying on within-family comparisons, we predominantly find null effects on turnout of attending a general programme, compared to a vocational one. We conclude that there are no universal positive effects of starting a general rather than a vocational secondary education – and that effects can turn negative for students who start an education that is too demanding. This finding implies that it is important to design secondary education such that it matches the abilities of different students, not only for labour market prospects, but also for their political inclusion.