Copyr vpyright 2000 by Thic Gerontological Society of America The Gerontologisl Vol. 40, No. 1, 18-31 Contemporary politicians and their advisors focus on older voters as a pivotal segment of the American electorate. Some analysts predict that this preoccupation will intensify in the years ahead and the demands of older persons will dominate American politics. One reason for this focus on older voters is that they constitute a substantial proportion of voters today, largely because of age-group differences in voting turnout rates, and they will
Voting Participation, 1966-1996 Over the past 30 years, the proportion of votes cast
centage of voting-age citizens has declined by almost one third, from 18.1% to just 12.7%. Percentage
1968 19721976 1980 1984 1988 1992 19 Figure Year
65+ +6.5% 45-64 -21.5% 25-44 -34.7% 18-24 -40-30 -20-10 10 Percentage Change Figure 4. Change in voting participation rate by age groups, 1972-1996. Source: Author's calculations from data in U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Series P20, 1 972-1996. sources to follow public affairs" (p. 35). More specifically, older people tend to be more generally knowledgeable about politics than younger people (Carpini & Keeter, 1993; Luskin, 1987). In studies and surveys of different cohorts over the years, older persons report
What Difference Does
been diverse in their political attitudes (Binstock & Day, 1996; Campbell
litical participation and representation of older people in Europe, Walker (1999) concluded that "[old] age
1968 1976 1984 1992 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 Year Figure
41.4% 1972 2040 Figure
sible that
senior citizen communities
dential elections. But the past trends may not persist. Each of the age group categories will be made up of different birth cohorts than in the past, with different aggregate levels of health, education, income, partisan attachment,
Miller,