Journal of Youth Studies

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Change in political era and demographic weight

as explanations of youth ‘disenfranchisement’ in
federal elections in Canada, 1965–2000

Margaret Adsett

To cite this article: Margaret Adsett (2003) Change in political era and demographic weight as
explanations of youth ‘disenfranchisement’ in federal elections in Canada, 1965–2000, Journal
of Youth Studies, 6:3, 247-264, DOI: 10.1080/1367626032000138246

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Journal of Youth Studies, Vol. 6, No. 3, 2003

Change in Political Era and Demographic Weight as

Explanations of Youth ‘Disenfranchisement’ in
Federal Elections in Canada, 1965–2000

MARGARET ADSETT

ABSTRACT This study examines trends in the age-specific turnout rates of Canadians
in federal elections between 1965 and 2000 in order to understand the present problem
of declining voter turnout among young Canadians (18–29 years of age). While a
number of Canadian studies have framed the present-day problem of youth voter turnout
as a ‘cohort’ one, unspecified in terms of content, the role of political era and
demographic change in shaping these trends has been largely obscured, if not ignored.
This study examines the utility of these two factors as explanations for trends in youth
voter turnout. It is concluded that political era along with the changing demographic
weight of youth in the population of voting age have interacted to politically alienate and
marginalize Canadian youth.

Introduction
In Canada, as in much of the Western World, voter turnout has been declining
(Dalton & Wattenburg, 2000). The official voter turnout rate in Canadian federal
elections declined from 75.3 per cent in 1984 to 61.2 per cent in 2000. After the
sustained decline in the official turnout rates over the past two or three elections,
the problem of declining voter turnout among young Canadians and their
contribution to the overall decline has begun to receive attention in Canada. The
estimated turnout rate (weighted and adjusted) for Canadian youth 18–24 years
of age in the 2000 federal election was around 40 per cent. This compares with
an estimate of about 70 per cent in the 1970s (Canadian Election Study, 1972–79,
2000) [1]. Coulson (1999) directed attention toward youth in his study of the
determinants of voter turnout in the 1997 election. In that study Coulson found
that the variable ‘young’ was far stronger in explaining turnout (negatively) than
19 of the 20 variables used in his regression equation. The only exception was
a contextual variable ‘no important issue’; this variable was only slightly
stronger. Studies of earlier federal elections (for example, Pammett’s (1991)
study of the 1984 election) also found age to be a significant determinant.
O’Neill’s (2001) cohort analysis of data from a 1990 survey for the Royal
Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing and the Strengthening
Canadian Democracy Survey of 2000 directed further attention to the issue of
voter turnout among young Canadians. Her cohort analysis led to the following
conclusion: ‘… today’s younger Canadians are less likely to vote than were
younger Canadians of the previous generation at the same age, and aging alone
Margaret Adsett, PhD, Canadian Heritage, 25 Eddy Street, 4th Floor, Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, K1A 0M5.
Email: Margaret Adsett@pch.gc.ca

ISSN 1367–6261 print/1469-9680 online/03/030247-18  2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/1367626032000138246
248 M. Adsett

is unlikely to allow them to “catch up” ’ (O’Neill, 2001, p. 10). She further
elaborated on this conclusion to convey the idea that more recent generations
of Canadians have developed a behaviour of low voter turnout. As they age,
this behaviour gradually spreads to the next oldest age group, causing the
voter turnout rates of the older age groups to also decline. This statement of
the problem is consistent with the idea that voting, like civic participation
in general, is a behaviour learned in the formative years; if the behaviour of
voting is not acquired by a certain age, it is never ‘taken-up’. Thus, the
results of O’Neill’s (2001) study suggest that while the pattern of higher
levels of voter turnout with increasing age found in several studies (for example,
Pammett & Myles, 1991) might still hold in the future, turnout for all age
groups will eventually decline. This interpretation of the problem is also
consistent with the idea that generational replacement is responsible for declin-
ing voter turnout.
Blais et al.’s (2001) cohort analysis of the socio-demographic components of
voter turnout, which used data from the Canadian Election Studies of 1968–2000,
introduced the idea of ‘generational replacement’ explicitly into their analysis of
declining voter turnout. Their findings were similar to O’Neill’s (2001): ‘… the
propensity to vote (at the same age) [is] at least 20 points lower among the most
recent cohorts than among the pre-baby boomers’ (Blais et al., 2001, p. 5). Their
use of the generational replacement paradigm combined with a pre 1990 and
post 1990 design led them to also conclude that ‘the gradual replacement of the
latter by the former [pre-baby boomers to the 1970s cohort] accounts for most of
the turnout gap between pre and post 1990 elections’ (Blais et al., 2001, p. 5).
They made the following additional conclusions:
There is a generalized period effect that affects all groups and cohorts.
[Regardless of age or cohort, there was a decrease in the propensity to
vote since 1990 (about three percentage points)]
There are also strong life-cycle effects. [Turnout increased by 15 points
from age 20 to age 50 or 60, although it was concluded that these effects
were unrelated to the post 1990 drop in turnout]
There are powerful generational differences. (Blais et al., 2001, p. 5)
The general outline of these findings was reiterated in the Centre for Research
and Information on Canada’s (2001) Voter Participation in Canada: Is Canadian
Democracy in Crisis?, pointing the way for more attention to be directed at the
cohort problem of voting behaviour among younger Canadians.
The evidence pointing to declining voter turnout as a cohort problem is
convincing; however, this in itself does not provide an answer as to why
younger cohorts are voting less than their predecessors were at the same age.
Since the birth cohort size is implicitly embedded in the design of these cohort
studies, it would be an obvious candidate for the job of explaining declining
voter turnout between cohorts. However, cohort analyses, especially synthetic
cohort analyses, have a tendency to preclude the identification of meaningful
period effects (Stockwell, 1976; Braungart & Braungart, 1989). The result is that
possible period effects on voter turnout will be attributed to cohort effects,
particularly once age is controlled [2].
An obvious period effect that might be important to the research problem at
hand is political era. The emergence of neo-liberalism and globalization, which
 Youth ‘Disenfranchisement’ in Federal Elections in Canada 249

have narrowed the political conversation, could have played a role in reducing
voter turnout, especially during the 1990s, but also over the 1980s. The fact that
the higher turnout rates of the predecessors of today’s youth (i.e., the baby
boomers) occurred in a relatively left leaning period and in the context of a
politically active international youth counter culture should also be acknowl-
edged (see Braungart & Braungart, 1989; Ewen, 1994). In addition, Johnston
(2000) suggests that the emergence of the post-Third Party System (related to a
typology of the nature of party politics over time [3]) might be associated with
declining voter turnout in general. The idea that these changes might have
marginalized and alienated youth from the political sphere has yet to properly
explored.
Given the potential importance of period effects (i.e., political era) to the
explanation of voter turnout, it is important to note that when Blais et al. (2001)
conclude that they found a weak period effect, they are not referring to a period
effect of any political, sociological or demographic significance in and of itself.
Instead, they are referring to the pre-1990 and post-1990 time period, established
to delineate a period of relatively high turnout from relatively low overall
turnout [4]. Even if another pre and post design had been chosen, the fact
remains that it is probably impossible to distinguish period from cohort (or
cohort from life cycle [5]) effects with available data:

One of the greatest weakness of the quantitative analysis the effects of

aging [life cycle], cohort and period, often used in the case of political
data, resides in the fact that the parameters of the model are additive
and that one postulates a linear dependence of effects. This results in
the problem of ‘identification’, which makes it impossible to estimate a
single type of effect, whether it be age, cohort or period, without
postulating that one of the parameters of the model has no effect
(Knode, 1984; Rodgers, 1982). It is more than probable, however, that
the effects of age, cohort or period are confounded in most of the
political variables and that in political life, they operate conjointly
rather than in an additive fashion. As one has observed, attempts to
disentangle age, cohort and period effects are ‘as futile as the search for
the Holy Grail,’ since the influences exerted by the diverse sources of
change are not ‘distinct’ … (Braungart & Braungart, 1989, p. 34; present
author’s translation)

Thus, it would be inappropriate to base the importance of period effects to the

explanation of declining voter turnout, on cohort studies or studies that have
focused on separating them from other age/time-related effects.
This study examines the evidence on periodic trends in voter turnout by age
group, using the Canadian Election Studies of 1965–2000 in order to ascertain the
plausibility of a period explanation of declining voter turnout among Canadian
youth (i.e., political era). The possible effect of demographic weight on turnout
is then examined, with the expectation that the shrinking demographic size of
the youth population relative to the other life cycle groups in the population of
voting age has resulted in declining attention on the part of politicians to
youth-related issues.
250 M. Adsett

The Data
The Canadian Election Study is the only source of long-term trends in age-specific
voting patterns in Canada. Turnout rates from the Canadian Election
Study are consistently higher than the official ones because of social desirability
in response and sample bias. With regard to social desirability in response, the
assumption is made, as in Blais et al. (2001) and Pammett & Myles (1991), that
the effect of social desirability on the reporting of voter turnout is not related to
the age of the respondent. With regard to sample bias, people who participate
in election surveys are generally more likely to vote than people who do not
participate. The pre and post design of many of the Canadian Election Studies
(e.g., the Canadian Election Studies from 1988 onwards) introduces further sample
bias, in that those who participate in the post-election surveys are more likely to
be those who voted in the elections under investigation (see Blais et al., 2001).
Since the interest in this study is in the age-specific trends rather than declining
voter turnout, the decision was made to use the unadjusted data in this study
(i.e., they are not adjusted downwards to match the official turnout rates for the
total registered voter population). Note that available national weights were
applied to these data.
For the purposes of this study, the data have been grouped to capture stages
of the life cycle: 18–24 and 25–29 years of age to represent youth; 30–34 years of
age to represent the not so young (buffer group); 35–44 and 45–54 years of age
to represent the middle-aged or prime worker age groups; and 55 ⫹ years of age
to represent the retired or pre retired. With regard to the youngest age category,
18 years has been the legal age for voting in federal elections since 1970. Since
federal elections are often 4 years, and sometimes 5 years apart, many young
Canadians do not get their first opportunity to vote until they are 21 or 22 years
of age. When the voting age was 21, the effective age at first opportunity to vote
for some young Canadians would have been even higher. While 18–24 year olds
are, since the 1970s, legal adults in most respects, this age group is nonetheless
a transition group (from school to economic independence), although many
18–24 year olds are still in school. The 25–29 year age group embodies the
maximum historical age for youth in Western cultures. Historically, the tran-
sition to adulthood, defined by marriage, children, completion of schooling and
a stable job, is expected to occur by 30 years of age.
The 30–34 year age group was separated out as a buffer category between the
maximum historical range for youth and ‘economically active and established’
adults (35–44 and 45–54 years old). This age group would normally have settled
into the labour market in a more permanent way than the younger two age
groups, and most would have found partners and started families. With regard
to the latter, the ‘economically active and established’ adults were split into two
age groups, not so much out of life cycle concerns as out of demographic birth
cohort considerations. However, there is a slight life cycle difference between
them. Most people in the 35–44 year age range would be at the promotion stage
of their careers; earnings generally peak around the age of 44 (although this
depends on the occupation). Canadian 45–54 year olds are generally approach-
ing the end of their careers. As for the 55 ⫹ age group, the average age of
retirement has decreased over the time frame of this study such that the 55 ⫹ age
group represents this life cycle event better today than in the past. Since the
focus of this study is on younger Canadians, this age category is not disaggre-
gated any further.
 Youth ‘Disenfranchisement’ in Federal Elections in Canada 251

Figure 1. Reported voter turnout in federal elections by age group, 1965–2000.

Source: CES 1965–2000, special tabulations, weighted.

Age-Specific Trends in Voter Turnout Rates in Federal Elections

Figure 1 presents the age-specific rates of reported voter turnout in federal
elections in Canada between 1965 and 2000. The following observations can be
made:

1) Before 1984, there were few clear and consistent age-specific patterns in the
turnout rates and the spread between the rates by age group was relatively
small (i.e., life cycle effects were relatively weak).
2) After 1980, the spread between the rates by age group has consistently grown
such that the difference between the turnout rates of younger and older
Canadians is now quite large (i.e., life cycle effects have become stronger).
3) The age-specific pattern of voter turnout since 1984 has been one of the
higher rates as age increases, with the exception of the 1997 election when the
rate was slightly higher for 18–24 years olds than it was for 25–29 year olds.
4) A large decline in the voter turnout rates of the two youngest age groups
occurred between 1980 and 1984. While the turnout rates for all age groups
except the 30–34 year olds increased between the 1984 and 1988 elections, the
spread in the turnout rates between the age group of young Canadians with
the lowest rate and the age group of older Canadians with the highest rate
continued to increase [6].
5) In the pre-1984 time period, the voter turnout rates for the 55 ⫹ age group
were low relative to the post-1980 time period; and in the post-1980 time
period, their rates are consistently higher than those of all other age groups
[7].

With regard to the first observation, it should be pointed out that the largest
pre-1984 spread in the rates occurred in 1972 only as a result of the unusually
252 M. Adsett

low turnout rate for 18–24 year olds. This could be due to the fact that the entire
18–24 year age group consisted of first-time voters in this election (i.e., the voting
age was 21 in the previous 1968 election). Thus, this pre-1984 turnout rate for the
youngest age group was probably depressed relative to what it would have been
had so many new voters not been recently eligible to vote. An analysis of the
trends for 21–24 year olds provides some support to this notion; their rate also
declined in 1972 relative to what it was in the two previous elections, bouncing
back to its pre-1972 level shortly thereafter. There could have been enumeration
problems and young Canadians (18–20 years of age) probably required time to
become acculturated to voting.
After the 1980 election, the age-specific turnout rates became unbundled, a
consistent pattern of lower voter turnout with decreasing age emerged, and the
spread in the turnout rates by age groups consistently increased. The difference
in the spread was 19.5 per cent in 1984, and it rose to 34.4 per cent by 2000. Thus,
even if the upturn in the reported voter turnout rates of some of the age groups
in the 1988 Canadian Election Study is to be considered real, rather than an
artefact of changes in survey design (see note [6]), the spread between the
turnout rates of younger and older Canadians continued to increase. In short,
the dominant picture that emerges in plotting the age-specific rates over time is
the relative unimportance of life cycle in voter turnout rates in the pre-1984 time
period and the growing importance thereafter; with youth’s turnout rates
thereafter declining and that of the 55 ⫹ age group increasing.

Change in Political Era

The change in the pattern and the spread of the age-specific turnout rates in 1984
is so marked and consistent thereafter that an explanation is required. These
data appear to be indicating a change in the effect of life cycle on voter turnout
across two political eras defined by the 1984 election. The 1984 federal election
marks the end of the Trudeau era and a number of years of Liberal rule. It also
marks a change in what Johnston (2000) and others (for example, Carty et al.,
2000) refer to as the political party system. Along with the Liberal reign of
Pearson in 1963 and 1965, the Trudeau era, which lasted until he resigned in
1984, delineates the Third Party System. It was a period of weak governments
with relatively strong opposition in the House (in the Pearson–Trudeau era there
were four minority governments); the opposite is generally the case in the
post-Third Party System (i.e., strong governments and weak opposition in the
House). This is in part because, relative to the post-Third Party System, the Third
Party System was also one of less distortion in representation (i.e., the number
of seats each party held in the house was more in line with the number of votes
cast for each party) and less fragmentation (e.g., number of political parties in
the House). However, what is important to note about the difference between
the Third Party System and the Post-Third Party system is that the latter system
has been accorded the status of being less responsive than the former one. The
emergence of strong life cycle effects in voter turnout in the post-Third Party
System era could well be indicative of a change in the system’s responsiveness
to the needs and interests of citizens by the stage in the life cycle that they
occupy, especially youth (negative) and the retired (positive). In other words,
these data appear to be pointing to an interaction between life cycle and period
effects.
 Youth ‘Disenfranchisement’ in Federal Elections in Canada 253

Of course, the end of the Trudeau era delineates more than just the end of the
Third Party System. There is an ideological component to the 1984 divide. The
Trudeau era was the height of the welfare state in Canada as well as a political
period of economic nationalism (the National Energy Program is a prime
example), Keynesian economics, and government intervention in the economy to
solve problems such as unemployment, regional inequality and growing foreign
ownership (e.g., the Foreign Investment Review Agency (FIRA)). In addition,
Trudeau called upon citizens to participate in the creation of a ‘Just Society’ and
a society with greater equality and respect for difference. It was an era of
participatory democracy and individual and human rights. The introduction of
the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the funding of ‘socially unequal’ groups
to lobby the government for change are two good examples of the latter.
According to Braungart & Braungart (1989) these are precisely the types of
issues that have historically mobilized youth around the world into political
action, if not also revolution (i.e., equality, civil rights, nationalism, etc.). How-
ever, as the bundling of the turnout rates in the pre-1984 period indicates, it was
not just Canadian youth that were inspired in this time period. Carty et al.’s
description of the politics of this era elucidates why:
Parties, no longer in the brokerage business of catering to the peculiar-
ities of the country’s various regions, soon found themselves engaging
in what David Smith would perceptively call ‘pan-Canadian politics.’
This was a politics dedicated to creating a Canadian community, and it
became the task in the third party system to define a national agenda,
and to mobilize Canadians, as individual participating citizens, in
support of their competing visions for the country. (2000, p. 21)
This political era also had a cultural component; it was a society defined by a
strong youth culture and by a strong youth counter culture that ‘mobilized’ for
change, threatened to ‘drop-out’ and questioned adults’ values and authority.
Among the changes youth sought were peace, greater equality in society, and
individual and human rights, not coincidentally, the very types of issues for
which both Pearson and Trudeau became immortalized. One of the slogans of
the time was ‘the personal is political’, a call for mobilization on the basis of
identity. This youth culture, which extended far beyond Canada’s borders,
defined the music, the dress, the literature, the style and the thoughts of the era.
It was an era of youth empowerment and that empowerment was buttressed by
political participation of all forms, including voter turnout (see Ewen, 1994).
When the Progressive Conservatives came to power in 1984, they promised
good fiscal management and hinted that tax cuts might be on the horizon (or at
least that taxes would not increase). They also promised to deregulate controls
on foreign investment (e.g., FIRA) and other programmes that came with the
tide of economic nationalism that had swept the earlier era. FIRA and the
National Energy Program were quickly dismantled. This period saw the end of
universal social programmes; further cuts in social programmes; a focus on
deficit reduction, privatization and further deregulation (e.g., the airlines, inter-
national investment and trade); and the emergence of neo-liberalism (i.e., the
rule of market forces). In this post-Trudeau era, the ‘Just Society’ and equality
were no longer central issues in the political conversation (see Dickerson &
Flanagan (1994) for a more detailed description of the nature and ideology of the
Trudeau and Mulroney political eras). Individual and human rights were no
254 M. Adsett

longer priorities. Indeed, many political writers and politicians in Canada and
abroad in the post-Trudeau era have articulated the notion that we must shift
our thinking from rights to duty. This shift of emphasis can be found in the
communitarian movement that has gained political currency in much of the
Western World, especially in the US and Britain, but also in Canada. To youth
of the 1960s and 1970s, the call to replace the quest for rights with duty would
have been translated into ‘don’t ask for your share of the economic, social and
political pie—just accept the status quo’. For youth in the 1980s onwards, the
message was probably not even heard.
While youth have a propensity to vote for the party in power, undoubtedly
due to the fact that they are socialized into the prevailing modes of political
thought and ideology, the neo-liberal and regional conversations of the post-
Trudeau era are unlikely to have appealed to some of the historically enduring
characteristics and interests of Western youth, such as idealism and personal
development. For example, youth, along with the retirement age group, have
always been the main beneficiaries of the welfare state. Asking youth to
participate in electoral politics in the post-Trudeau era would be like asking
them to engage in: (a) the dismantling of the welfare state, and (b) the cutting
of social programmes that help them get established. However, the fact of the
matter is that cuts to the programmes that help youth get established were
undertaken without identifying them as such (e.g., cuts to the funding of
post-secondary education and to the unemployment insurance programme in
terms of coverage and benefits). In fact, cuts to the funding of post-secondary
education never became part of the political conversation because they were
undertaken through large-scale cuts to social transfer payments. Cuts to the
unemployment insurance programme were undertaken under the auspices of
good fiscal management and debt reduction. It was never a question of cuts, but
rather how deep the cuts should have been. The only appeal to youth, and a
weak one at that, in the post-Trudeau era was made by the Mulroney govern-
ment with the message that ‘youth should not have to pay for the accumulated
debt created by their parents throughout their working lives; therefore social
programmes should be cut to lighten their future burden’. The message was
slanted because, in the end, it meant that youth would pay now.
In short, a major change in the effect of life cycle on voter turnout occurred at
a point in time that delineates, in several respects, two political eras. The politics
of the post-Trudeau era has obviously not attracted young Canadians to the
polls, and this lack of attraction should be all the more understandable given the
nature of the changes (e.g., ideological) and the nature of the post-Third Party
System. Since youth’s interests in the dismantling of the welfare state were never
so much as identified, it is not difficult to imagine why a behaviour of lower
voter turnout has emerged among those at the earlier stages of the life cycle in
the post-Trudeau era. The change in the relationship between youth and the
state in the post-Trudeau era has given rise to the issue of the relevance of
government to Canadian youth. In a recent Ipsos-Reid (2002) survey on youth,
62 per cent of 18–30 year olds were either neutral or agreed that the Government
of Canada is not relevant to them. An article about the Trudeau legacy in Inside
Ottawa shows a different relationship between the state and youth in the past:
‘The Trudeau government took the problems of a youth population bubble and
turned it into an opportunity to connect youth to each other and to their
 Youth ‘Disenfranchisement’ in Federal Elections in Canada 255

country … No Prime Minister since Trudeau has sought to capture the imagin-
ation of youth’ (Chenier, 2000, p. 3).

Changes in Demographic Weight and Reported Voter Turnout

It was general knowledge in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s that all of
the major political parties were courting the youth vote. Pearson, who won the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1957, had a following among youth; he was known as a
‘peacenik’. As for Trudeau, his youthful qualities were central to his 1968
election campaign (Feigert, 1996). Between elections, the Trudeau government
lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 years. Trudeau’s campaign for re-election
in 1972 was kick-started by an event involving a rock band called Crowbar.
Trudeau’s young, marijuana smoking and baby boomer wife ‘played’ to the
youthful voter. In addition, there was no shortage of public funds for post-sec-
ondary education, unemployment and job creation programmes (see Canadian
Labour Congress, 1998; Roy & Wong, 1998; Johnston, 2002). When Trudeau
‘unveiled OFY [Opportunities for Youth] as the centrepiece of the federal
summer program for youth’ in 1971, the Secretary of State at the time, Gerard
Pelletier, announced that the program’s scope ‘would be limited only by the
imagination of young people themselves’ (Dicerni, 1998, p. 22). There is a reason
why so much political attention was paid to youth in the Pearson–Trudeau era;
it concerned the demographic weight of youth and the post-World War II baby
boom.
While the delineation of the Canadian baby boom in time varies according to
the measure used (e.g., number of live births or fertility rate), Foot (1998) frames
it in terms of the 1947–66 time period in order to cover the abnormal bulge in
the number of live births, beyond the trend line. The 1947–59/60 time period
covers the rise to the top of the bulge (the baby boomers), 1960–69/70 best
describes the down side of it (the second wave baby boomers), and those born
after 1969/70 can be referred to as the baby bust generation (i.e., a return to the
pre-World War II low fertility regime; see Romaniuc, 1984). During the 1972
federal election, the first complete group of 18–24 year olds from the baby boom
went to the polls with a demographic weight of almost one-fifth of the voting
age population (19.6 per cent). Young Canadians as a whole (18–29 years of age)
had a combined weight of almost one-third of it (31.7 per cent). As Foot (1998)
contends, demographic weight has a great deal of influence in setting the
electoral and political agenda of the day. The reasons behind the decision to
introduce the rather luxurious Opportunities for Youth programme illustrate
Foot’s (1998) point:

The summer of 1971 was a time of tremendous anxiety for the Trudeau
government. Youth unemployment levels going into the summer re-
mained elevated. During the previous year, unrest on university cam-
puses had been widespread, giving rise to concerns among politicians
and Manpower officials that the summer months would witness large
numbers of discontented youth hitchhiking across the country … In re-
sponse to these concerns, on March 16 1971, Prime Minister Trudeau
unveiled OFY [Opportunities for Youth] as the centrepiece of the
federal summer program for youth. (Dicerni, 1998, p. 22; emphasis
added)
256 M. Adsett

The fact that youth (15–24 year olds) gained such political attention when their
unemployment rate was only 11.1 per cent, compared with 12.6 per cent in 2000,
further speaks to the political power of demographic weight.
In the early 1980s, the demographic weight of younger voters began to shift
along with the political agenda; the baby boomers were aging. Figure 2 displays
the demographic shift in absolute terms, starting in 1984 with the increase in the
number of 35–44 year olds. There was also a continuation in the trend of
increasing size for the 55 ⫹ age group (probably due at this point in time to
increases in longevity, although by 1997 the increases would also be a result of
the fertility upturn that started with the end of the Great Depression). Over the
course of the 1980s, the absolute number of 18–24 year olds started to decrease;
this is at the same time that the number of 45–54 year olds started to increase.
Voters ceased to hear about increased funding to education. In fact, they started
to hear first about caps and then later cutbacks in funding to education (see
Council of Ministers of Education of Canada, 2000; Johnston, 2002); the baby
boomers had completed their schooling. They started to hear about cuts to the
funding of direct job creation programmes for youth (see Roy & Wong, 1989);
the baby boomers had already obtained their steady jobs. Voters no longer heard
about the special housing programmes for first-time homeowners and the
generation of youth that would otherwise never own a home; the baby boomers
had already purchased their homes. Over the course of the 1990s, voters no
longer heard about the special tax deductions for child care either; they were
turned into less lucrative tax credits and the long-awaited national child care
programme was cancelled due to lack of funds. The children of most of the baby
boomers had already passed the child care stage. By the time of the federal
election of 2000, young Canadians of the baby bust generation (the 1970s cohort)
represented just over one-fifth (only 21.2 per cent; 12.3 per cent for 18–24 year
olds and 8.9 per cent for 25–29 year olds) of the voting-age population. The
demographic weight of 35–44 year olds increased from 16.7 per cent to 18.4 per
cent between 1980 and 1984 alone (the baby boomers were aging) and to 22.4 per
cent by 2000. The demographic weight of 45–54 year olds increased from 13.5
per cent in 1988 to 18.4 per cent in 2000; that of the 55 ⫹ age group increased
in weight from 25.3 per cent in 1980 to 28.2 per cent in 2000 (see Figure 3). As
a result of these demographic shifts, pensions, health care (younger Canadians
are not the prime users of the health care system) and tax cuts/government
spending became the dominant ‘social’ issues. However, youth issues declined
in importance not just because of their declining demographic weight, but also
because the decline in the number of youth living in the households of the
‘economically active and established’ group rendered youth issues less import-
ant to them as well.
Figure 4 demonstrates the relationship between the reported voter turnout
rates of 18–24 year olds between 1972 and 2000 and their demographic weight
in the population of voting age [8]. Note the demographic slide starting in 1984
and again in 1993, along with their reported voter turnout rates [9]. The
Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient (r) expressing this relationship is 0.72. This
means that demographic weight and reported voter turnout rates for 18–24 year
olds co-vary over time; as one decreases, so does the other. Figure 5 portrays the
same relationship for 25–29 year olds between 1965 and 2000, and it is even
stronger (r ⫽ 0.88). Note that the demographic slide, along with the slide in
reported turnout rates, occurs in 1993, although there was a significant down-
 Youth ‘Disenfranchisement’ in Federal Elections in Canada 257

Figure 2. Size of the voting population by age group, 1965–2000. Source: Cansim
and special request to Statistics Canada.

turn in their turnout rates in 1984 (see note [9]). The relationship for 30–34 year
olds is lower, with a Pearson’s r ⫽ 0.70 (see Figure 6). The slide in the demo-
graphic weight and the reported turnout rates for 30–34 year-olds starts in 1997.
The relationships between reported voter turnout and demographic weight for
35–44 and 45–54 year olds are negative and quite weak for the former age group
(r ⫽ –0.24) relative to the latter (r ⫽ –0.68). While the demographic weight of
these two age groups started to increase in 1984 and 1993, respectively, their
voter turnout rates have been high across the entire time frame of this study,
especially those for 45–54 year olds, with erratic but minor fluctuations (see
Figure 7). In addition, the trend line for the voter turnout rates of 45–54 year olds
is actually flat across the time frame of this study, while it is slightly decreasing
for 35–44 year olds. However, for the former age group, voter turnout has
increased slightly with declining demographic weight and decreased slightly
with increasing demographic weight, while for the latter age group there is
simply no relationship between the two. The result is no positive correlation
with demographic weight on either account. These results are probably an
indication that 35–44 and 45–54 year olds constitute a core voting-age group that
wields political power from their economic and social status. Thus politicians
engage the ‘economically active and established’ life cycle group, regardless of
its demographic weight, and the small fluctuations in its turnout rates generally
reflect the specifics of a given election. Furthermore, the high completed fertility
rates of this group in the pre-1984 time period relative to the post-1980 time
period would have buttressed its support for youth and welfare-state-oriented
policies when their demographic weight was lower and youth’s demographic
weight was high; when the ‘economically active and established’ group’s demo
258 M. Adsett

Figure 3. Demographic weight of age groups in the population of voting age,

1965–2000. Source: Cansim and special request to Statistics Canada.

Figure 4. A comparison of reported voter turnout and demographic weight for

18–24 year olds, 1972–2000. Source: CES 1965–2000, special tabulations, weighted.
 Youth ‘Disenfranchisement’ in Federal Elections in Canada 259

Figure 5. A comparison of reported voter turnout and demographic weight

for 25–29 year olds, 1965–2000. Source: CES 1965–2000, special tabulations,
weighted.

graphic weight started to increase, that of youth began to decrease, as did the
number of dependents for which this group was responsible. Thus, the govern-
ment’s agenda shifted away from youth but not away from the interests of the
‘economically active and established’ group.
The relationship over time between reported voter turnout rates and demo-
graphic weight for the retirement (and pre-retirement) group is strong and
positive (r ⫽ 0.69). Their demographic weight and reported voter turnout rates
have both been increasing over time (see Figure 8). As is pointed out elsewhere,
in the post-Trudeau or post-Third Party System era, their voter turnout rates also
increased relative to other life cycle groups such that their rates are now higher
than any other group. Thus, there appears to be a positive relationship between
demographic weight and reported voter turnout rates for all but the ‘economi-
cally active and established’ voting age groups.
In short, the period–life cycle interaction, elaborated earlier to explain the
pattern and trends observed in the voter turnout data, can further be articulated
as a birth cohort size and life cycle interaction that occurred at the intersection
of two political eras. When youth’s demographic weight was politically
significant, they were engaged by politicians in a pan-Canadian politics to
participate in shaping the development of their country, as were Canadians at
other stages of the life cycle. When the demographic weight of Canadians at
other stages of the life cycle began to grow (and as the baby boomers aged),
there was a shift to the right and a less representative and responsive party
system developed; young Canadians became marginalized. What Black (2001)
posits as the consequences of non-participation in voting is equally applicable to
the consequences of low demographic weight: ‘The real problem is that uneven-
ness [of non participation] translates into distortions of representation and
260 M. Adsett

Figure 6. A comparison of reported voter turnout and demographic weight

for 30–34 year olds, 1965–2000. Source: CES 1965–2000, special tabulations,
weighted.

government response … voices that are not heard are usually not heeded’ (Black,
2001, p. 29). In fact, Foot (1998) maintains that the only apparent youth issues
that have surfaced on the political radar screen over the past decade did so
mainly because they became issues for middle-class baby boomer parents (e.g.,
the high cost of post-secondary education for their children). Averill described
the problem of youth turnout today as a ‘cycle of neglect’:
The … challenge arises from what young people described as ‘the cycle
of neglect’ that exists between youth and politics. The cycle is rooted in
the fact that political parties rarely placed a heavy emphasis on youth
issues in their platforms. In turn, this has tended to give little or
nothing to follow or take up as a cause, leading them to be apathetic or
disinterested. The result, therefore, is a strengthened sense among
political leaders and parties that young people can not be engaged, and
therefore do not represent a valuable source of political support,
thereby giving them little motivation to develop policies directed at
young voters. And the cycle continues. (2002, p. 11)
However, as has been demonstrated in this study, it was not always this way.
When the demographic weight of young Canadians was high, they were
engaged in electoral politics and their turnout rates were not only generally
higher than today, but also closer to those of the other life cycle groups.
 Youth ‘Disenfranchisement’ in Federal Elections in Canada 261

Figure 7. A comparison of reported voter turnout and demographic weight for

35–44 and 45–55 year olds, 1965–2000. Source: CES 1965–2000, special tabulations,
weighted.

Figure 8. A comparison of reported voter turnout and demographic weight for

55 ⫹ year olds, 1965–2000. Source: CES 1965–2000, special tabulations, weighted.

Conclusions
Political era and demographic weight provide good explanations of the changes
in the age-specific turnout rates that have occurred over time, especially where
youth are concerned. With the emergence of neo-liberalism, the Canadian state
262 M. Adsett

has reduced if not retracted its support to Canadian youth in their transition to
adulthood (e.g., post-secondary education, unemployment insurance and hous-
ing) in its dismantling of the welfare state. In addition, it has given a low priority
to the types of programmes and initiative that have traditionally concerned
Western youth (e.g., equality, and individual and human rights). The evidence
is even clearer on the timing of an absolute and sustained decline in youth’s
voter turnout rates and the emergence of neo-liberalism (and the end of the
Third Party System that was more responsive to the people it served) if the
inflated reported turnout rates starting in 1988 due to survey design changes are
taken into account. However, even without this consideration, the timing of the
emergence of neo-liberalism in Canada (1984) and the emergence of a consistent
and increasing spread in the reported turnout rates of younger and older voters
is the same.
As for demographic weight, youth’s declining representation in the popu-
lation of voting age, due largely to the aging of the baby boomers and fertility
decline, also occurred with the emergence of neo-liberalism. In addition, the
correlations between the trends in the voter turnout of any given life cycle group
and that group’s representation in the population of voting age are, for the most
part, quite strong, especially for youth and the retirement age group. These
changes in demographic weight might well serve as an explanation as to why
neo-liberalism emerged when it did in Canada. Either way, these changes do
appear to explain why youth have been politically marginalized and largely
excluded from the political conversation. The end result is youth disenfranchise-
ment and a Canadian democracy that, in yet one more way, cannot claim to
speak for all of the eligible citizens that it is supposed to represent.

Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the support that Brian Gilhuly of the Department
of Canadian Heritage gave to the research that led to this article and to Carl
McKellar who provided research assistance in the project’s earlier phases.

Notes
[1] The Canadian Election Study from 1965 to 2000 is difficult to reference because the co-
investigators are university-based and change from election to election. However, the Institute
for Social Research at York University is a good institutional reference since it has collected the
data over many years; there is ample documentation to be found there. Also, Johnston (1995)
provides a good 30-year overview of the CES.
[2] A period effect refers to the effect that historical events, national or international conflicts,
economic cycles, catastrophes, new scientific and technological developments, or new ideologies
and paradigms, political or other, have on attitudes and behaviour. A simple example is the
effect that the Great Depression had on the value of thrift in society at large. A cohort effect
refers to the effect that the shared experiences of people born at the same time have on the
cohort’s behaviour. People born at the same time are socialized together through the school
system and are usually indoctrinated with the prevailing social, scientific, economic and political
paradigms and ideologies of the time. Birth cohort size and the access to resources that a birth
cohort has in growing up can also produce cohort effects. The shared experiences remain with
cohort members as they pass from one stage of the life cycle to the next (see Braungart &
Braungart, 1989).
[3] This typology labels political periods according to the nature and characteristics of party politics
over time, by number. Thus there was the first party system followed by the second, and so on.
In short, the names of the political periods have nothing to do with the characteristics of party
politics over time.
 Youth ‘Disenfranchisement’ in Federal Elections in Canada 263

[4] Their period effect appears to be simply the ‘residual variance’ left over after age and birth
cohort have been allowed to account for the variation in turnout rates between the pre-1990 and
post-1990 time periods.
[5] Life cycle effects refer to psychological, biological and social factors related to age and one’s
stage in the life cycle that affect attitudes and behaviour. For example, youth are generally high
energy relative to older Canadians and generally more concerned with freedom, self-develop-
ment, novelty and independence. Older Canadians are generally less energetic and more
concerned with security, tradition, and posterity. People who are retired will have interests,
behaviours and attitudes different than those raising families or from those making the
transition from youth to adulthood (see Braungart & Braungart, 1989).
[6] It is important to note that there was a major change in the survey methodology (pre and post
design) starting with the 1988 Canadian Election Survey. This change is known to produce higher
reported turnout rates because the post-election survey attracts respondents who are the most
likely to have voted in the election under investigation.
[7] In the 1984 election, the turnout rate for 45–54 year olds was marginally higher than that for
55 ⫹ year olds; however, the trend towards higher relative turnout rates for the 55 ⫹ year olds
started in the 1984 election.
[8] The 1965 and 1968 elections are excluded from this particular analysis of 18–24 year olds because
18–20 year olds could not vote in these two elections and the demographic data for 21–24 or
18–20 year olds was not available for the entire time frame of this study. While the relationship
between the various life cycle groups artificially shifted in terms of demographic weight, after
the lowering of the voting age, the 1965 and 1968 elections have not been excluded from the
analysis for the other age groups. Their retention generally lowers the strength of the correla-
tions.
[9] The interruption in the slide in voter turnout rates between 1984 and 1993 could be attributed
to a change in survey design (pre and post) in 1988 and thereafter; see note [6].

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