This paper studies the magnitude of an intergenerational
transmission in right-wing extremist attitudes. Using longitudinal
data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, the estimates suggest
that the strongest and most important predictor for young people’s
right-wing extremism are parents’ right-wing extremist attitudes.
There are considerable heterogenous effects, the most important
being a stronger intergenerational association in far right-wing
attitudes between sons and parents. The estimates suggest that
parents’ socio-economic characteristics matter: (1) The
intergenerational link is stronger in the tails of parents’ income
distribution than in the middle of the distribution; (2) the
association between parents and adult children is around 5-6 times
larger if both parents report support for a right-wing party
compared to right-wing party affinity of one parent `only’; (3)
there is a stronger intergenerational transmission if parents
experienced unemployment in the recent past or have lower levels of
education. The findings suggest that when considering appropriate
strategies to counter right-wing extremism among youth and young
adults, more attention should be paid toward both children and their
parents.
Presented by:
Thomas Siedler (DIW, Berlin)
Date & time:
October 1, 2008 12:00 pm - September 30, 2008 11:00 pm
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