Canadians with university degrees more likely to vote: Statscan

The more educated you are, the more likely you are to vote.

That’s according to new data from Statistics Canada about last year’s federal election.

The difference in voter turnout between Canadians with a university degree and those with a high-school diploma is most pronounced among younger voters.

“Education matters a lot,” said Scott Matthews, a political-science professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. “Young people haven’t grown up in a culture that emphasizes civic duty. Education compensates for some of the generational differences in political participation.”

If you’re aged 25 to 34, having a university education means you’re more than twice as likely to vote as someone with only a highschool education.

Even among voters above 55 – traditionally the most likely to participate in an election – the difference is still significant.

The number of Canadians with a university degree has doubled since 1990, while the number with only a highschool diploma has stayed static at about one-fifth of the population.

Matthews says a rising number of university graduates likely will result in more voter participation in the short term, but he cautions against making any longterm projections about a democratic rebirth.

“This may narrow the gap somewhat,” he said. “But that assumes that the kind of education we will receive in the future will be the same as in the past. We may not be able to assume that the same pattern will hold because the nature of education is changing.”

A move away from social sciences into an emphasis on technical instruction, he said, could have consequences for political participation.

New Canadians are less likely to vote as well, and Matthews said that’s no surprise. But the numbers show that immigrants from English-speaking countries, such as the United States and New Zealand, vote in similar numbers to the general population, as do those from western Europe.

“It’s something we’ve seen many times,” he said.

“People who are coming from traditions – political, social or cultural – tend to be less fully absorbed and less engaged in the political culture.”

Among non-voters, especially young people and those with young children, one of the main reasons cited for skipping the polls was “a busy schedule.” But Matthews says he’s skeptical that so many Canadians had a full calendar on voting day last year.

“That sounds a whole lot better and more civic than that you just don’t care,” said Matthews. “There is strong social pressure to vote.”

The Statistics Canada report came from research conducted in the May edition of the monthly survey of Canada’s labour force.

Overall voter turnout in the May 2 election that gave Stephen Harper his first majority government was 61 per cent. This is similar to the turnout in the 2000 federal election, but down almost 15 per cent from elections in the 1970s and 1980s.

The story is more pronounced in the provinces.

Less that half of Ontario voters bothered to attend the polls in the provincial election last October, and Quebec’s most recent contest ended with a historic low in voter participation.

Elections Canada has recognized the problem. Many solutions have been proposed for increasing turnout, including electronic voting and lowering the voting age.

But Matthews says that after four federal elections in less than a decade, Canadians might just be burned out on exercising their democracy.