Life-cycle effects

Changing roles, resources, family responsibilities, and community ties can alter behavior within people as they age.

Follow respondents over time; rising participation with stable adult roles supports life cycle rather than cohort.

A life-cycle account predicts a recurring change associated with roles or aging, not a permanent difference unique to one birth cohort. Greater turnout among older adults in one election is insufficient because those adults were also born earlier. Panels that follow the same individuals, or repeated surveys comparing cohorts at equivalent ages, provide stronger evidence. The mechanism should also be named. Stable residence may simplify registration, employment may expand networks, parenthood may increase attention to schools, and retirement may create time for participation. Age is a clock; changed roles explain why behavior might move with it. If successive cohorts become more active after settling permanently in a community, the repeated role transition supports a life-cycle explanation.

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