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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 be a considerably larger proportion in the future because of the aging of the
baby boom cohort. This article examines the voting participation of age groups in past
presidential elections and explores what the voting participation of older persons
could be like when the baby boom cohort reaches old age. The political significance
of older persons being a large percentage of voters is considered with respect to
both the past and the future.
Key Words: Age-group voting, Political participation, Politics of aging
Older People and Voting Participation:
Past and Future
Robert H. Binstock, PhD
With the 2000 elections for president and Congress drawing near, Democratic and Republican strategists and pollsters are once again focused on older
voters as a pivotal segment of the American electorate. As a Democratic pollster has perceived the situation: "It's virtually impossible to take back the House
or win the presidency without taking back seniors.
. . . That makes them the key battleground, and both
parties know it" (Toner, 1999). Accordingly, the parties
are continually attempting to position themselves
favorably with competing proposals affecting Social
Security, Medicare, and long-term care financing—
areas of public policy that they perceive to be of
most concern to older voters (Feldmann, 1999). Some
analysts (e.g., Thurow, 1996), anticipating the decades when the 76 million persons in the baby boom
cohort will be old, have suggested that such preoccupation with older voters will intensify in the years
ahead and that American politics will be dominated
by the demands of older persons in the first half of
the 2 1 s t century.
Why is the "senior vote" being courted so assiduously, and why might this practice intensify in the
future? One reason is that persons aged 65 and older
constitute a substantial proportion of voting-age Americans today, and will be a considerably larger proportion throughout the first half of the 2 1 s t century.
In addition, the percentage of the total vote that older
Partial support for the preparation of this article came from the National Academy on an Aging Society, a policy institute of The Gerontological
Society of America, through a grant from the Commonwealth Fund,
New York, NY.
Address correspondence to Robert H. Binstock, PhD, Professor of
Aging, Health, and Society, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve
University, Cleveland, OH 44106. E-mail: [email protected]
18
people have cast in national elections from the 1970s
through the 1990s has exceeded their proportion of
the voting-age population and may continue to do
so in the decades ahead. And another reason is the
assumption that the avowed positions of candidates
regarding old-age policies can be major factors in
"swinging" the voting decisions of older persons from
one candidate to another.
This article examines the past voting participation
of age groups in presidential elections (see Appendix note)—the political arena in which issues involving
Social Security, Medicare, and other federal policies
on aging are most salient—and considers what the
voting participation of older persons could be like
when the baby boom cohort reaches old age. It begins with an analysis of age-group participation in
national elections from 1966 to 1996. Next, it discusses the political significance of the facts that the
proportion of votes cast by older persons is large,
growing, and exceeds their percentage of the votingage population. Then it speculates about the politics
of older voters in the future by: setting forth the percentages of the voting-age population that older people
are projected to constitute during the first half of the
2 1 s t century; modeling some projections of the proportion of votes that older persons might cast by
extrapolating from past age group participation trends;
presenting some examples of factors that could easily change such trends; examining what we know
about the politics of baby boomers to date; and laying out some scenarios that might affect the voting
preferences of baby boomers when they are old. A
brief final section summarizes the facts and the conclusions reached in this article, and puts forth some
observations about the probable voting behavior of
older persons in the future.
The Gerontologist
Voting Participation, 1966-1996
Table 1. Votes Cast by Persons Aged 65 and Older
as Percentage of All Votes Cast in Presidential Elections,
1966-1996
Over the past 30 years, the proportion of votes
cast in national elections by persons aged 65 and
older has grown continuously. As shown in Table 1,
the percentage of total votes in presidential elections
cast by persons aged 65 and older increased by 4.9
percentage points, from 15.4% of all votes in 1968
to 20.3% in 1996.
Older People as a Percentage of the Voting-AgePopulation.—Contrary to a conventional assumption,
the steady rise in older persons' component of the
vote over the past 30 years cannot be attributed primarily to an increase in the elderly population. Although the number of people aged 65 and older
swelled by nearly four fifths (78.9%) during this period, from 17.8 million to 3 1 . 8 million (U.S. Bureau
of the Census, 1966-1996), Figure 1 indicates that
older people's proportion of the voting-age population grew by only 4.4%, from 15.8% to 16.5%.
In fact, Figure 1 makes it clear that the largest
age-group rise in the percentage of voting-age citizens took place in the 25^+4-year-old category. The
growth in this age group's proportion was 8.8% (from
39.6% to 43.1%), double that for persons aged 65
and older. The entrance of the baby boom into the
25-44 year-old range accounts for the increase in
voting-age population in this age group. The slight
decrease (from 43.8% to 43.1%) that this category
experienced between 1992 and 1996 is due to the
fact that the leading edge of the baby boom moved
on into the 45-64-year-old bracket. Accordingly, this
latter group increased slightly over the same 4-year
period.
Persons Aged 65+ as
Percentage of Votes
Percentage of All
Year
Persons of Voting Age
Cast by Persons
Aged 65+
1996
1992
1988
1984
1980
1976
1972
1968
16.5
16.6
16.2
15.7
15.3
15.0
14.7
15.8
20.3
19.0
19.4
17.7
16.8
16.0
14.9
15.4
Source: Author's calculations from data in U.S. Bureau of the
Census, Current Population Reports, Series P20, 1 966-1996.
As a matter of historical interest, it is worth noting that the share of voting-age citizens fell off between 1968 and 1972 in all categories except the
youngest, the 18-24-year-old group, which rose sharply
from 10% to 18.1%. These occurrences can be traced
directly to the adoption of the 26th Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution in 1 9 7 1 , which lowered the
voting age to 18. (Previously, persons younger than
age 21 were only eligible to vote in four states—
Alaska, Georgia, Hawaii, and Kentucky.) The impact
of the amendment on age-group proportions of voting-age adults has faded over time, however, as baby
boom members who were initially in the youngest
category gradually moved along to older categories
as they aged. Since 1972, the 18-24-year-old per-
Age Groups
o>
WO
es
•«->
<u
u
<u
PH
1968
1972
1976
1980 1984
1988
19961992
Year
Figure 1. Percentage of persons of voting age, by age groups, in presidential election years, 1968-1996. Source: Author's
calculations from data in U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Series P20, 1968-1996.
Vol.40, No. 1,2000
19
centage of voting-age citizens has declined by almost one third, from 1 8 . 1 % to just 12.7%.
rates for persons aged 65 and older and 45-64 were
roughly comparable (64% and 63%, respectively).
By 1996, older voters turned out at the highest rate.
The participation rates for all groups fell off in 1976
(perhaps as a reaction to the Watergate scandal), but
since then only the rate for persons aged 65 and
older has recovered and increased. (The rate for all
groups, particularly the youngest, increased temporarily in 1992—a phenomenon discussed below.)
A graphic display of these changes in age-group
turnout rates over time is presented in Figure 4. As
can be seen, since 1972, voting participation by persons aged 65 and older has increased by 6.5%. In
stark contrast, the rates in the other age groups have
plummeted—by 34.7% for 18-24-year-olds, 2 1 . 5 %
for 25-44-year-olds, and 9% for 45-64-year-olds.
Percentage of Votes Cast by Older People.—Examination of age-group shares of the votes cast in
elections finds that since 1 9 7 2 persons aged 65 and
older have consistently constituted a larger share of
the electorate than they have of the voting-age population, and the gap has grown over time. As Figure
2 indicates, by 1996 older persons accounted for
20.3% of all votes even though they were only 16.5%
of the voting-age population.
One factor in the long-term growth in the share
of the vote cast by older people has been a decline
in the proportion of votes cast by 18-24-year-olds.
As depicted in Figure 3, since 1972 the percentage
of the total vote attributable to the youngest category has fallen by almost one half, from 14.2% to
only 7.6%. However, this decrease does not fully
account for the increased share of votes cast by older
people because the proportion of votes for which
persons in the 25-44 year-old range were responsible rose 8.9% during the same period as this age
bracket became increasingly populated by baby
boomers (until the 1996 election).
Why Are There Age Group
Differences in Turnout?
Why has the rate of voting participation among
older persons increased over the years, while participation rates for the younger groups have declined?
This is a particularly difficult question to answer because the various age groups have comprised different birth cohorts over time, and the political context
of each election is somewhat unique. Moreover, although the connection between age and voting participation has been investigated a great deal, overall
the reasons for the relationship remain a source of
controversy (e.g., see Miller & Shanks, 1996; Teixeira,
1992: Strate, Parrish, Elder, & Ford, 1989; Wolfinger
& Rosenstone, 1980).
Age Group Turnout Rates.—The most important
reason for the long-term upsurge in the portion of
votes cast by older people is that turnout rates of
the various age groups have changed over the years.
Table 2 shows that in 1972, voters in the 45-64year-old bracket had the highest turnout rate (71%),
the youngest bracket had the lowest (50%), and the
25
20.3%
16.5%
% voting age pop.
5
1968
% votes cast
1972
1976
1980
1984
1988
1992
1996
Year
Figure 2. Persons aged 65 and older as percentage of voting-age population, and as percentage of votes cast, in presidential
elections, 1968-1996. Source: Author's calculations from data in U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Series P20,
1968-1996.
20
The Gerontologist
1968
1972 1976
1980
1984
1988
1992
Year
Figure 3. Percentage of vote cast by age groups in presidential elections, 1968-1996. Source: Author's calculations from data in
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Series P20, 1968-1996.
One contributing factor is age-group differences in
voting registration, an essential precursor to voting.
Table 3 shows that from 1972 to 1996 the rate of registration in the oldest groups was maintained while
the rate in other age groups declined. Persons aged
65 and older did not have the highest rate in 1972.
But following a distinct decline in registration rates for
all age groups in 1976 (paralleling the decline in
turnout rates in that year), the rate for the oldest group
returned to its previous level and slightly increased
over the years. Although the rates for all other age
groups have fluctuated since 1976, they have remained substantially below their 1972 levels. In fact,
the 1996 rates for all of the groups younger than 65
years old show a slight decline from the 1 9 7 6 rate.
A two-stage study of voter registration and turnout in national elections (Timpone, 1998) found that
increased age (from age 18 to 88) is monotonically
related to being registered (as generally reflected in
Table 3). It also found that age was the second most
Table 2. Percentage of Voting Age Persons Who Voted,
by Age Groups, in Presidential Elections, 1972-1996
Age
Group
18-24
25-44
45-64
65+
1972
1976
1980
1984
1988
1992
1996
50%
63
71
64
42%
59
69
62
40%
41%
58
70
68
36%
54
68
69
43%
58
70
70
32%
49
64
68
59
69
65
Source: Author's calculations from data in U.S. Bureau of the
Census, Current Population Reports, Series P20, 1972-1996.
Vol.40, No. 1,2000
21
influential factor in distinguishing between registrants
and nonregistrants among 21 variables that were
grouped by demographics, social connectedness, general political attitudes, election-specific attitudes, and
administrative barriers to registration. Another agingrelated factor, length of residence in one's home,
also had a substantial influence on registration. These
factors may help explain why registration rates of
older persons have been maintained over time, in
contrast with those of the other age groups. The most
important factor influencing registration was education. This may somewhat account for why the rate
of registration by older persons has gradually increased,
because the birth cohorts entering the aged 65 and
older category over the past quarter of a century
have received more formal education than the cohorts they have replaced.
Yet, the study also makes it clear that the influences of age and education are moderated when
the relationship between registration and turnout is
examined. So differences in age-group registration
rates may only partially explain why the voting participation rates for the category of persons aged 65
and older have held up over time and perhaps why
they have slightly increased.
The theory that persons who are comparatively
well informed about politics and public affairs are
more likely to register and vote (Palfrey & Poole,
1987) suggests another factor that may contribute to
the fact that rates of voting participation among older
people have been maintained while the rates for other
groups have declined. As McManus (1996) observes,
"Older persons are more likely to pay attention to
the news and to rely upon a wider array of news
19
65+
+6.5%
45-64
25-44
-21.5%
18-24
-34.7%
-30
-40
-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 the highest level of interest in political campaigns and public affairs, generally (Glenn
& Grimes, 1968; Jennings & Markus, 1988; Jennings
& Niemi, 1 9 8 1 ) , and their level of political knowledge shows no sign of decline as they reach advanced old age (Comstock, Chafee, Katzman, McCombs,
& Roberts, 1978; Jennings & Markus, 1988). Strate
and colleagues (1989) found that interest in and knowledge about politics, incorporated in a variable they
labeled "civic competence," increases with age and
declines only slightly at advanced old ages. They
also found that that the increase is sharper over time
for adults without a college education, and suggested
that although such persons had less knowledge and
interest to begin with, "aging effects cause substan-
Table 3. Percentage of Voting Age Persons Who Registered
to Vote, by Age Groups, in Presidential Elections, 1972-1996
Age
Group
1972
1976
1980
1984
1988
1992
1996
18-24
25-44
45-64
65+
60%
71
80
76
51%
66
76
71
50%
66
76
75
51%
67
77
77
48%
63
76
78
53%
65
75
78
49%
62
74
77
Source: Author's calculations from data in U.S. Bureau of the
Census, Current Population Reports, Series P20, 1 972-1996.
22
tial gains in civic competence that serve to erode
their initial disadvantage" (p. 452).
Still another contributing factor may be the wellestablished connection between the strength of political party identification and higher rates of voting
participation (see, e.g., Campbell, Converse, Miller,
& Stokes, 1964; Milbraith & Goel, 1977; Rosenstone
& Hansen, 1993). Strong partisans are most likely to
vote (Caldeira, Patterson, & Markko, 1985). And older
persons identify with the major political parties more
strongly than younger persons (see McManus, 1996;
McManus & Tenpas, 1998). By the same token, the
decline in turnout rates among younger age groups
over time can be at least partially explained by the
relationship between political party identification
and higher voting rates. Alwin (1998) finds that "the
baby boom cohorts are substantially more Independent and less either Democrat or Republican. . . .
They are exceeded in this tendency only by the postbaby boom cohorts" (p. 50).
These various factors may provide some understanding of why the turnout rates of age groups
have changed. But, in particular, the distinct drop
in voting participation among the groups younger
than 65 years old, composed of different cohorts in
various electoral contests, needs greater explanation.
There is a substantial literature on the general decline of voting participation in American elections
in recent decades, but no common or wholly persuasive explanation has emerged (see, e.g., Abramson & Aldrich, 1982; Miller, 1992; Piven & Cloward,
1988; Shaffer, 1 9 8 1 ; Teixeira, 1992; Wolfinger & Rosenstone, 1980). This remains a promising area for research.
The Gerontologist
What Difference Does It Make?
a category created by policy analysts, pension officials, and mechanical models of interest group politics" (p. 393).
The assumption that the political attitudes and behavior of older people are predominantly shaped by
common self-interests that derive from the attribute
of old age breaks down for a variety of reasons. There
is no sound reason to expect that a birth cohort—
diverse in economic and social status, labor force
participation, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, education, health status, family status, residential locale,
political attitudes, partisan attachments, and every
other characteristic in American society—would suddenly become homogenized in self-interests and political behavior when it reaches the old-age category.
Old age is only one of many personal characteristics of aged people, and only one with which they
may identify themselves.
Moreover, if some older voters primarily identify
themselves in terms of their age status, this does not
mean that their self-interests in old-age policy issues
are the most important factors in their electoral decisions. Other policy issues, altruism, the characteristics of specific candidates, long-standing partisan
attachments, and many other stimuli in an electoral
campaign can be of equal or greater importance.
Even if one assumes that rational self-interest is
the major determinant of voting behavior, for older
and younger voters, the voter's vision of his or her
self-interest may not be the same as the political
analyst's. The analyst's "objective" characterization
of what is at stake for the voter may not correspond
to the voters' subjective judgment. As Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon (1985) described the situation of
an individual voter:
What is the political impact of the large and growing proportion of votes that older persons cast? Politicians and their advisors pay attention to this phenomenon because they and many others have subscribed to a "senior power" model for interpreting
the politics of aging in the last decades of the 20th
century (see Binstock, 1995; Cook, Marshall, Marshall,
& Kaufman, 1994; Peterson & Somit, 1994). Although
this model is flawed, logically and empirically, it continues to thrive in political and journalistic circles,
as well as among some academicians.
The Senior Power Model.—The model starts with
the fact that older people constitute a numerically
significant portion of the electorate and then assumes
that their political behavior is guided by their selfinterests, and that most of them perceive their interests to be the same. These assumptions have their
roots in a view of voting behavior that has its roots
in neoclassical economics and statistical decision theory,
which predicts that each voter's decision among candidates is rationally calculated, on the basis of complete and accurate information, to optimize her or
his self-interest. Applying these assumptions, one expects older people to be homogeneous in political
attitudes and voting behavior and thereby, through
sheer numbers, to be a powerful, perhaps dominating, electoral force. Moreover, the senior power model
also assumes that interest groups representing older
people are very influential forces that can "swing"
the votes of older persons and thereby "intimidate"
politicians. Based on all these assumptions one can
believe that older voters and old-age interest groups
are able to exert substantial control over policies on
aging. (For fuller discussions of the senior power model
see Binstock, 1997a; Pratt, 1993, 1997; Rix, 1999;
Street, 1999.)
Some of the many commentators who share this
belief, and who are not advocates for older people,
have put forth rather radical proposals for containing senior power. For instance, three decades ago
Douglas Stewart (1970) proposed that all Americans
be disfranchised at retirement or age 70, whichever
is earlier. In 1 9 8 1 , a former Assistant Secretary of
Health and Human services, fearing that the "gray
lobby" would win a pitched battle against the children's lobby in a competition for shrinking social
welfare resources, proposed that parents with children under the voting age of 18 be enfranchised
with an extra vote for each of their dependent children (Carballo, 1 9 8 1 ) . This phenomenon is not confined to the United States. For example, Peter Peterson (1999, p. 2 1 0 ) reports that a senior minister in
Singapore's government has proposed that "each taxpaying worker be given two votes" to balance the
political power of retirees.
Differences in the kind of evidence you respond to
may have nothing to do with your utility function.
Instead, they may reflect the model you have of the
world, the beliefs you have formed about the meanings and predictive value of different kinds of available information, and what information has come
to your attention, (p. 300)
Finally, the self-interests of older people in relation to old-age policy issues, and the intensity of
their interests may vary substantially. Consider, for
example, the relative importance of Social Security
as a source of income for aged persons who are in
the lowest and highest income quintiles. Social Security provides 81.8% of income for those in the
lowest quintile, but only 17.7% for those in the highest
(Radner, 1995). Some older persons have much more
at stake than others do in policy proposals that would
reduce, maintain, or enhance Social Security benefit
payments.
In view of these flaws in the senior power model,
it is not surprising that the model does not hold up
empirically. The attribute of old age has had little
impact on political attitudes and electoral decisions
in the United States. It has been well documented
that past and present cohorts of older people have
Flaws in the Model.—The senior power model,
however, has many flaws. As political scientist Hugh
Heclo (1988) has observed, "'[T]he elderly' is really
Vol.40, No. 1,2000
23
been diverse in their political attitudes (Binstock &
Day, 1996; Campbell & Strata, 1 9 8 1 ; Day, 1990,
1994, 1998), supporting the general conclusion stated
by political scientist Angus Campbell ( 1 9 7 1 ) some
three decades ago:
Because each age cohort includes people who differ profoundly in many important conditions of life
it is not likely that any group will be very homogeneous in its attitudes. The evidence which national
surveys provide us does in fact demonstrate that attitudinal differences between age groups are far less
impressive than those within age groups, (p. 1 1 7 )
It has also been documented that past and present
cohorts of older Americans have tended to distribute their votes among electoral candidates in roughly
the same proportions as other age groups do (Binstock,
1997b). As Street (1999) asserts, "There is no credible evidence in the United States that age-based
voting blocs are a feature of national election landscapes" (p. 1 1 7 ) . The empirical evidence from European nations is similar. Naegele and Walker (1999),
summarizing the situation there, conclude that "empirically numerous pieces of evidence [show that
old age] is no authoritative means of predicting
political opinions and behavior" (p. 202).
One element of the senior power model that has
some empirical validity is the assumption that oldage-based interest groups (see Binstock, 1997c; Day,
1998; Morris, 1996; Price, 1997; Van Tassel & Meyer,
1992), casting themselves as "representatives" of a
large constituency of older voters, have some forms
of power. Although they have not demonstrated a
capacity to swing the votes of older persons, they
do play a role in the policy process. In the classic
pattern of American interest group politics (Lowi, 1969),
public officials find it both useful and incumbent
upon them to invite such organizations to participate in policy activities. In this way public officials
are provided with a ready means of having been "in
touch" symbolically with tens of millions of older
persons, thereby legitimizing subsequent policy actions and inactions. A brief meeting with the leaders
of major old-age organizations can enable an official to claim that he or she has obtained duly the
represented views of a mass constituency.
The symbolic legitimacy that old-age organizations
have for participating in interest group politics gives
them several types of power. First, they have easy
informal access to public officials: members of Congress and their staffs; career bureaucrats; appointed
officials; and occasionally the White House. Second,
their legitimacy enables them to obtain public platforms in the national media, congressional hearings,
and in national conferences and commissions dealing with old age, health, and a variety of subjects
relevant to policies affecting aging. Third, old-age
interest groups can mobilize their members in large
numbers to contact policymakers and register displeasure when changes are being contemplated in
old-age programs.
Perhaps the most important form of power avail-
24
able to the old-age interest groups might be termed
"the electoral bluff." Although these organizations
have not demonstrated a capacity to swing a decisive bloc of older voters, the perception of being
powerful is, in itself, a source of political influence
(see Banfield, 1 9 6 1 ) . Incumbent members of Congress are hardly inclined to risk upsetting the existing distribution of votes that put them and keeps
them in office. Few politicians, of course, want to
call the bluff of the aged or any other latent mass
constituency if it is possible to avoid doing so. Hence,
when congressional offices are flooded with letters,
faxes, E-mail messages, and phone calls expressing
the (not necessarily representative) views of older persons, members of Congress take heed.
Nonetheless, these forms of power have been quite
limited in their impact. The old-age interest groups
have had little to do with the enactment and amendment of major old-age policies such as Social Security
and Medicare. Rather, such actions have been largely
attributable to the initiatives of public officials in the
White House, Congress, and the federal bureaucracy
who were focused on their own agendas for social
and economic policy (e.g., on Social Security, see
Derthick, 1979; Light, 1985; on Medicare, see Ball,
1995; Cohen, 1985; Iglehart, 1989; cf. Pratt, 1976,
and Pratt, 1993). Nor have the old-age organizations
been able to prevent significant policy reforms that
have been perceived to be adverse to the interests
of an artificially homogenized constituency of "the
elderly" (see Binstock, 1994a; Day, 1998).
Indeed, the political legitimacy of old-age interest
groups has been eroding over the past 10 years (see
Binstock, 1997c; Day, 1998; Street, 1999). To some
extent this erosion can be traced to the ineffective
roles they played in specific political episodes such as
the enactment of the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage
Act in 1 9 8 8 and its partial repeal in 1989 (Himmelfarb, 1995) and the saga of health care reform efforts
in 1993 and 1994 (Binstock, 1994b). Following these
events, the most powerful of the old-age organizations, the 40-million member American Association
of Retired Persons (AARP), came under attack in 1995
at two U.S. Senate hearings in which various witnesses criticized its organizational practices and taxexempt status (see Binstock, 1997c). Senator Simpson
of Wyoming even questioned whether AARP represented its own constituency, charging that the organization "imposes a policy agenda on an unwilling
membership" (Pear, 1995). Symbolic of this decline in
the political legitimacy of old-age interest groups in
recent years, perhaps, is that none of President Clinton's 1997 appointments to the National Bipartisan
Commission on the Future of Medicare was a representative of organized old-age interests ("Members
of the Panel on Medicare," 1997).
In sum, the senior power model has little validity
with respect to the political attitudes and voting behavior of older Americans, and only limited validity
with respect to the power of U.S. old-age organizations. The situation appears to be the same in other
Western democracies. In a recent overview of poThe Gerontoiogist
litical participation and representation of older people in Europe, Walker (1999) concluded that "[old]
age per se is not a sound basis for political mobilization" (p. 7).
How large a proportion of the electorate will elderly baby boomers be? Are they likely to vote cohesively?
Persistence of the Model.—Despite these facts, the
image of so-called senior power persists because it
serves certain purposes. It is marketed by the leaders of old-age-based organizations who have many
incentives to inflate the size of the constituency for
which they speak, even if they need to homogenize
it artificially in order to do so. It is used as a "straw
man" by those who would like to see greater resources allocated to their causes and who depict the
selfishness of the aged as the root of many societal
Projecting the future voting participation of age groups
Voting Participation and Elderly Baby Boomers. —
based on evidence from the past is a highly speculative undertaking. It is possible, however, to make
a reasonably solid projection of the proportion of
all persons of voting age who will be in specific age
categories in the 2 1 s t century (if one accepts the
fertility assumptions used by the U.S. Bureau of the
Census). Figure 5 shows that the percentage of
voting-age citizens aged 65 and older is projected
to be 1 7% in 2000 and to increase to about 27% in
problems (e.g., Callahan, 1987; Peterson, 1999). And
it is purveyed by journalists as a tabloid symbol that
simplifies the complexities of politics. A long-standing journalistic cliche is that Social Security is "the
third rail" of American politics because politicians
who "touch it" will be "dead" (e.g., "The Third Rail
of Politics," 1982, p. 24).
Most important, politicians "share [the] widespread
perception of a huge, monolithic, senior citizen army
of voters" (Peterson & Somit, 1994, p. 178). This is
why they continue to court the votes of older persons. Politicians are eager to capitalize on (and are
wary of) the potential cohesiveness of older voters,
and still listen to the views of old-age interest groups
despite their recent decline in political legitimacy.
Incumbents and challengers in electoral campaigns
woo the "senior vote." They strive to position themselves on old-age policy issues in a fashion that they
think will appeal to the self-interests of older voters,
and usually take care that their opponents do not
gain an advantage in this arena. So the large and
growing proportion of votes that older persons cast
does have an impact on election campaign strategies, and leads incumbents to be concerned about
how their actions in the governing process can be
the proportion of potential voters in each age category does not tell us what percentage of the total
vote will be cast by the respective age groups.
It is possible to construct some models for forecasting the percentage of the total vote that older
persons might cast in elections in the 2 1 s t century,
although, for reasons that will be discussed below,
such models are highly problematic. One approach,
for example, would be to assume that the 1996
ratio of the percent of votes cast by older persons
to the proportion that persons aged 65 and older
were of the voting age population in that year would
remain static over time. The use of this assumption,
displayed in Figure 6, produces a forecast that the
number of votes cast by persons in the 65-yearsand-older category would be as high as about one
third of all votes in the mid-2030s.
Another approach would be to
the 24-year trend (1972-1996) in
tion rates. As Figure 7 shows, this
that the votes cast by older people
extrapolate from
voting participamethod projects
would be 30.4%
of the total vote in 2020 and 41.4% in 2044.
However, neither these nor similar approaches are
reliable. The various age brackets will be composed
portrayed in reelection campaigns.
of different mixtures of birth cohorts than they were
in the 20th century, and those mixtures will con-
tinue to change throughout the decades ahead.
In addition, the effects of different historical periods
(such as the Great Depression or the era of the Vietnam War) in shaping political attitudes have been
mediated somewhat differently by the various cohorts because they experienced those periods at
Older Voters in the 21st Century
The persistence of the senior power model has
generated some apocalyptic visions of American
politics in the 21st century when baby boom voters
will have reached old age. Economist Lester Thurow
(1996), for instance, envisions a politics of stark
intergenerational conflict:
different ages. Consequently, age-category voting par-
ticipation rates and trends may differ substantially
from those in the past as different birth cohorts
enter the respective age categories. The turnout rate
No one knows how the growth of entitlements can
be held in check in democratic societies. . . . Will
democratic governments be able to cut benefits
when the elderly are approaching a voting majority?
Universal suffrage ... is going to meet the ultimate
test in the elderly. If democratic governments cannot cut benefits that go to a majority of their voters,
then they have no long-term future. ... In the years
ahead, class warfare is apt to be redefined as the
young against the old, rather than the poor against
the rich. (p. 47)
Vol.40, No. 1,2000
2035 when all members of the baby boom cohort
will have reached this age category. Yet, knowing
for older persons has averaged 68.6% in the last
three presidential elections (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1966-1996). Williamson (1998) suggests that the
participation rate for baby boomers when they reach
old age may even be greater because they will on
average have better health and higher levels of education and income than the cohorts of older persons that preceded them. It is also possible that more
people of all ages will register and vote in the 2 1 s t
25
1968
1976 1984 1992
2000
2010 2020
2030
2040
2050
Year
Figure 5. Persons aged 65 and older as percentage of all persons of voting age in presidential elections, 1968-1996, and as
projected for selected years, 2000-2050. Source: Author's calculations from data in U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population
Reports, Series P20, 1968-1996 and Series P2 (Middle Series Projections), 1998.
35 -i
30 -
„
33.1%
25
«
|
20 H
(2
15
o
10
5
0
2000
2005
2010 2015 2020
2025
2030
2035
2040
2045
2050
Year
Figure 6. Projected percentage of votes that would be cast by persons aged 65+ in nationwide elections in the 21st century,
based on 1996 ratio of percent of votes cast by persons aged 65+ to proportion that persons aged 65+ were of voting-age
population. In 1996 the ratio was 1.23/1 (see Table 1). Source: Author's calculations from data in U.S. Bureau of the Census,
Current Population Reports, Series P25 (Middle Series Projections), 1998.
26
The Gerontologist
41.4%
1972
2040
Figure 7. Percentage of total vote cast by persons aged 65 and older, 1972 and 1996 (actual) and 2020 and 2044 (extrapolated
from 1972-1996 trends in voting participation rates). See Figure 4 for 1972-1996 voting participation trends. Source: Author's
calculations from data in U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Series P20, 1972-1996 and P25 (Middle Series
Projections), 1998.
century as the Internet and other communication technologies are utilized to facilitate voting participation.
Moreover, even if rates or trends should prove to
be generally stable over time, the specific political
context of given elections may elicit greater or lesser
turnouts from the electorate as a whole and from
particular age groups, thereby changing the overall
distribution of the percentages of votes cast by
age categories. A case in point was the 1992 election when the long-term trends in the youngest and
oldest age groups' proportions of the total vote were
temporarily interrupted because the percentage voting in each age group increased (see Figure 3). This
particular election involved Ross Perot's initial independent candidacy for president, which appears to
have especially mobilized greater participation by
younger age groups (see Table 2). For instance, Perot
garnered 22% of the votes that were cast in the 1824-year-old bracket, while he received only 12% from
persons aged 65 and older ("Portrait of the Electorate," 1992). In the subsequent election of 1996, when
Perot's candidacy was "old hat," the long-term trends
seemed to have resumed, although Perot's support
from older voters was still less than that from all of
the younger age groups ("Portrait of the Electorate,"
1996). The comparative reluctance of older voters
to choose independent candidates is in harmony with
the research literature, cited previously, which shows
that older people tend to have the strongest and
most stable attachments to traditional political institutions, including the major political parties. As adults
grow older the strength of attachment and loyalty to
parties increases (Strate et al., 1989). In contrast, there
Vol. 40, No. 1,2000
27
is evidence that persons in the youngest age group
in the electorate have historically had weaker identification with the major parties, have been more
likely to describe themselves as independents, and
have cared less about the actual outcomes of elections than older voters (McManus, 1996). Moreover,
through the courses of their lives, older persons have
experienced more elections involving the electoral
failures of independent candidates than have younger
people. Consequently, it is reasonable to hypothesize
that they are more skeptical of the value of voting
for an independent.
An election campaign that is highly focused on
age-related issues to the virtual exclusion of others
could also alter trends in age-group voting participation rates. One can imagine a 2 1 s t century election in which two presidential candidates take starkly
opposed policy positions regarding financing and
benefit distributions in the Social Security or Medicare programs. Depending on the details, such a political
context might substantially affect age-group turnout
rates and thereby sharply alter the long-term patterns in percentage of total vote cast by particular
age categories.
In short, all that one can safely predict is that when
all members of the baby boom cohort are aged 65
and older, the proportion of the total vote that is
cast by older people in national elections probably
will be significantly higher than it is today.
The Politics of Baby Boomers.—Although the senior power model has not held up empirically in
the closing decades of the 20th century, is it pos-
sible that it might in the decades ahead? Will baby
boomers cast a notably cohesive "senior vote" in
the 2 1 s t century, unlike preceding cohorts of older
Americans? Is it conceivable that Thurow's specter
of class warfare between the old and the young will
materialize? A brief review of what we know to
date about the politics of the baby boom cohort is
a good starting point for exploring these questions.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the baby
boom cohort was popularly characterized as a monolithic political group, notable for its liberal activism.
As Paul Light (1988) notes, its members had much
in common:
has been similar to that of other birth cohorts during
the past 30 years. As baby boomers have passed
through various age ranges they have distributed their
votes among candidates in roughly the same proportions as have other age groups at those times (see
Binstock, 1997b). They have not been a relatively
cohesive electoral constituency.
They shared the great economic expectations of the
1950s and the fears that came with Sputnik and the
dawn of the nuclear era. They shared the hopes of
John F. Kennedy's New Frontier and Lyndon Johnson's
Great Society, and the disillusionment that came with
the assassinations, Vietnam, Watergate, and the resignations, (p. 10)
Yet, as Light also notes, not all of the baby boomers
were protesters on college campuses. Some went to
Vietnam instead, and others went straight from high
school to work.
Regardless of stereotypes of the baby boom cohort in this earlier period, it is clear that its members have not been politically homogeneous. Alwin
(1998) reports that from 1 9 6 8 through 1978 about
50% of Boomers identified themselves as Independents, 35% as Democrats, and 15% as Republicans.
Since 1980, the proportion that has said they are
Democrats has remained stable, but there has been
a systematic decline in Independent identification and
an increase in Republican identification. By 1994,
about 30% of baby boomers declared themselves to
be Republicans. So far, the baby boom cohort has
become somewhat more conservative as it has grown
older.
In terms of socioeconomic characteristics, members of the baby boom cohort are diverse just like
older age cohorts. In some respects they are more
so. As Williamson (1998) notes, baby boomers are
made up of two minicohorts, those born between
1946 and 1 9 5 4 and those born between 1 9 5 5 and
1964. Williamson goes on to point out that "economic experiences of these two groups have been
different (Bouvier & De Vita, 1 9 9 1 ) . The older boomers
have economically benefited from better timing with
respect to when they entered both the housing market and the job market (Cornman & Kingson, 1996)"
(p. 55). In addition, the baby boom will be more
racially and ethnically diverse in old age than is today's
older population. Between 2000 and 2030, the proportion of persons aged 65 and older who are of
Hispanic origin will double from 5.4% to 10.9%,
and the proportion of Black older persons will increase by nearly one sixth, from 8.3% to 9.7% (Hobbs,
1996).
Given the partisan attachments and diverse socioeconomic characteristics of the baby boom cohort,
it should not be surprising that its voting behavior
28
Electoral Politics in the 21st Century. In view of
these characteristics of baby boomers, what will their
voting behavior be like when they reach old age?
Answers to this question can be informed by the
past, but they also need to be premised on hypothetical political scenarios.
Unless the political context of election campaigns
is radically different from what it is today—particularly with respect to issues affecting older people—
one would expect that when the baby boom cohort
reaches old age it will continue to split its votes among
candidates in patterns similar to younger cohorts, just
as older voters have done in the past. The baby boom
has developed stable partisan attachments. Although
baby boomers will come to share the characteristics
of old age, this will be only one set of characteristics that individual members of the group will have.
As outlined earlier, the baby boom is as least as
diverse socioeconomically as the cohorts that have
preceded it.
Yet, old age could become the most important
characteristic influencing electoral decisions of baby
boomers in certain circumstances. In one or more
election campaigns, for example, the Democratic and
Republican presidential candidates could espouse
drastically different positions regarding policies affecting older persons.
In the rare times of crisis in modern American
history, as during the Great Depression, politicians
have boldly abandoned their incremental approaches
and put forward radical public policy proposals. President Franklin D. Roosevelt came forth with bold innovations (for American politics) such as the Works
Progress Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps,
and Social Security. These innovations brought him
strong and enduring support from a new majority
coalition of American voters, as well as virulent opposition from others. Suppose that in 2030 the American
economy is in dire circumstances as it was 100 years
earlier during the Depression. The platform of one
candidate could assert that the United States can no
longer afford Social Security and Medicare. The other
candidate could vow to preserve the two programs,
at all costs, despite (or, perhaps, because of) the economic devastation besetting the country. In this scenario it is very plausible that the proportion of votes
given to the latter candidate by elderly baby boomers
would be much higher than the proportions from
other age groups.
Alternatively, in the same economic circumstances,
one candidate might assert that the only way that
old-age benefits can continue to be provided by the
federal government is to require that all citizens who
wish to receive them must reside in government-run
The Gerontologist
senior citizen communities or reservations. There, with
economies of scale, the federal government would
provide food, shelter, medical care, long-term care,
and various other goods and services necessary for
minimum adequate daily living. Programs such as
Social Security and Medicare would be abolished.
In this scenario, the characteristic of old age would
undoubtedly be a very important factor influencing
the votes of baby boomers. But it cannot be assumed
that their votes would cluster heavily against this candidate. Depending on their economic circumstances,
and their views regarding living arrangements and
notions of what constitutes a good lifestyle, many
older persons might regard residence in such a community to be a reasonable tradeoff for an assurance
that their basic needs would continue to be met
even in the context of a severely depressed economy. Others, of course, would not consider this tradeoff under any circumstances. And still others would
be indifferent because they would not need government support at all in order to maintain their
standards of living and lifestyles.
In yet another scenario, a political party comprising older baby boomers might emerge. To be sure,
no major old-age parties have yet developed in Western democracies. But a precursor of what may develop when industrialized democracies become "aging
societies" occurred in the Netherlands in the early
1990s. Controversial national policies relevant to older
people led to the establishment of two national parties, the General Senior Citizens' Union and Union
55+. Together, in 1994, they won 7 of the 150 seats
in parliament (Schuyt, Garcfa, & Knipscheer, 1999).
Some social scientists (Bengtson & Cutler, 1976;
Cutler, 1 9 8 1 ; Cutler, Pierce, & Steckenrider, 1984;
Torres-Gil, 1992) have argued that an age-group consciousness will develop among older people by the
21st century and that their political behavior will be
cohesive. If an old-age group consciousness develops among baby boomers, it might be built on and
politically magnified by the creation of, say, a Seniors' Rights Party. In the context of a severely depressed economy, it would probably seek to maintain the benefits of existing old-age policies. In the
context of a prosperous economy, it might espouse
new types of government benefits for older people
and major expansions of existing ones. It is plausible that such a party might capture a very high
proportion of the votes of baby boomers. Even if
it did not succeed in winning the presidency or a
substantial number of seats in Congress, the party's
efforts could very well foster a genuine intergenerational conflict of the kind envisioned by Thurow
and others.
Summary
Older voters are a substantial and growing proportion of the electorate in American presidential elections. The proportion of total votes cast by persons
aged 65 and older grew from 15.4% in 1966 to 20.3%
in 1996.
Vol. 40, No. 1,2000
29
Although some of this increase is attributable to
the numerical growth of the elderly population, much
of it is due to age-group changes in voting participation rates. As new birth cohorts entered the various age-group categories over the years, the voting
turnout rate for people aged 65 and older increased
somewhat but the rates for all other age groups declined (especially among persons aged 18-24 and
25-44).
Some of the age-group changes in turnout can be
explained by changes in voting registration rates. While
the registration rate for older persons has increased
slightly over a quarter of a century, the rates for the
other age groups have diminished. The theory that
persons who are relatively well informed about and
interested in politics and public affairs are more likely
to register and vote may also help to explain these
age-group differences. Studies show that older people, comparatively, have high levels of knowledge
and interest regarding public affairs, generally, and
political campaigns, particularly. And each succeeding
cohort of older persons has been more highly educated than the last. In addition, relatively high rates
of voting by older people may be attributed to their
stronger attachments to political parties, because there
is a well-established relationship between party identification and higher rates of turnout.
None of these factors, however, explain the decline in participation by the groups younger than 65
years of age and older. The reasons for the general
decline in voting over the past three decades remain a subject of controversy and debate in the scholarly literature.
The overall political significance of the large and
growing proportion of votes cast by older people is
complex. On the one hand, older voters have not
shown monolithic tendencies in their electoral decision making. Their ballots tend to distribute among
candidates in roughly the same patterns as do those
of other age groups and the electorate as a whole.
They have not proved to be important in determining the outcomes of elections. On the other hand,
old-age interest groups have some limited forms of
power based on their symbolic representation of a
large constituency, and the concomitant possibility
that they might, someday, be able to "swing" the
votes of a sizable number of older voters. Although
the political legitimacy of these groups has been on
the wane during the past decade, politicians still do
focus on the potential cohesiveness of older voters
and attempt to position themselves accordingly when
undertaking governmental actions and election campaigns—responses that are politically significant.
When all of the living members of the baby boom
cohort are aged 65 and older, they are projected to
constitute more than one fourth of the voting-age
population. However, predicting the proportion of
votes they will cast is problematic. Models that extrapolate from age-group turnout trends from 19721996 project that in the fourth and fifth decades of
the 21st century persons aged 65 and older might
cast from one third to two fifths of the votes in presi-
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, and other characteristics
related to voting participation. New laws and technologies may facilitate both voting and registration
among some age groups more than others.
Because the baby boom cohort is heterogeneous
in socioeconomic and political characteristics, its members are unlikely to cast their ballots in a monolithic
or even cohesive fashion when they are elderly, and
they are unlikely to make unified demands on politicians. However, the political circumstances could
be very different from today. Hudson (1998), in commenting on changes he perceives in the political context
of policies on aging in the late 1990s, has observed
that today's politics of aging "is not your grandfather's
politics of aging" (p. 130). When baby boomers reach
old age, American politics may not be their fathers'
or grandfathers' politics, either. For instance, candidates for office may take sharply different positions
from each other regarding policies on aging such
as those described in the scenarios of the kind that
have been painted in this article. In such a circumstance, the votes of older persons might tend to cohere, thereby enhancing the political significance of
the "senior vote." Barring scenarios of this kind, the
major political parties and candidates for office, as
in the past, will probably not diverge significantly
from one another regarding policies affecting older
people and the very large latent constituency of older
voters will probably not crystallize into a cohesive
political force. Any observations about the future
beyond these would be ungrounded.
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Received lu/y 24, 1998
Accepted October 18, 1999
Decision Editor: Vernon L. Creene, PhD
Shaffer, S. D. ( 1 9 8 1 ) . A multivariate explanation of decreasing turnout
Appendix
than usual participation or that may be of less than
usual interest to potential voters. For an appropriate
analysis of age-group voting participation, factors of
this kind would have to be explored in 535 electoral
contests—435 for the U.S. House of Representatives,
and 100 for the U.S. Senate (involving a different one
third of the states in each of the three Senatorial
elections that take place during a 6-year period.) Although these circumstances are also relevant to presidential elections, and are worth exploring (see Binstock, 1997b), their impact on analyses of data from
a single nationwide election contest is more diffuse
than in the many separate congressional contests.
Although candidates for Congress often stake out
positions on old-age policy issues in their campaigns,
and incumbents have voting records on such issues,
congressional elections are excluded from this discussion. In any given election the circumstances affecting
voting participation can vary substantially from one
congressional district to another and from one state to
another. Such circumstances include, for example,
legal and other local practices that facilitate or hinder
voter registration; whether a congressional candidate's
seat is "safe" or "hotly contested"; scandals or prominent issues that are local in nature; and electoral
contests for statewide office that may elicit higher
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