The first seven years of the political life cycle

One of the most noteworthy characteristics of American elections is the low turnout of young people. Hypotheses purporting to explain this phenomenon focus on life-cycle transitions that define "adulthood," like marriage or leaving school. For a variety of reasons that we explain, previous research has failed to test these propositions. We identify six such adult roles and estimate their effects on turnout of young citizens. We find that most of these transitions do not enhance the turnout of the young.