Role of Parents and Educated Youth’s Social and Civic Participation in Their Political Engagement: Survey Based Evidence from Universities in Lahore

Abstract

Analysis of political behavior of the electorate is a subject of close study in the developed world since the 1960s and also gained much attention in the developing world since the1990s (Astuto & Ruck, 2010). Yet there is a dearth of serious study and research on youth’s political and civic involvement in educational institutes and communities in Pakistan which could lead to their lack of engagement in and contribution to building an effective and inclusive polity. This is a valid concern for Pakistan as it is expected to remain a youth majority country till 2045. Our study builds on the perspective of sociopolitical development by providing empirical evidence on the impact of youth’s social and civic participation on three dimensions of their political participation namely; political interest, voting intentions and internet political participation. Further, the moderating effect of gender in the above relations was examined. The mediating role of a sense of community and trust in institutions in the sociopolitical and civic- political relation has also been assessed in light of the framework of youth’s political socialization used in this study. Additionally a separate scenario; the impact of parent participations on their off-springs’ participations has also been investigated to underscore the intergenerational transfer of values as an important political socialization process. In our study we have surveyed 500 students in five universities across Lahore close to the 2018 general elections for the purpose of this research. Using Multivariate Analysis of Variance, the one to one relation between social participation and forms of political participation as well as civic participation and forms of political participation has been investigated. The moderating effect of gender in the above relations is also examined using a multivariate analysis of variance. Mediation analysis mentioned above has been performed using structural equation model. The results show that youth’s social and civic participation are indispensible for all forms of their political engagement. Also gender differences exist in the relationships between social and political, and civic and political participation as our results show that socially and civically active females prefer to cast their vote more than males and that in contrast males show higher political interest and online participation traits than females. Our results show that sense of community does not mediate the relationship between youth’s social participation and political interest. Young generation’s community affiliation therefore needs to be developed to inculcate their political interest for a more inclusive political system. Sense of community mediates the relationship of social participation with voting intentions. Institutional trust also mediates the relationship between youth’s social participation and voting intentions. However the role of sense of community and trust in institutions is deficient in stimulating political interest and internet political participation among the socially and civically active university students. Our results also importantly show that parents transfer their values of participation to off-springs, hence development of engaged citizenry depends vitally on them. Parents’ participation encourages civic and social participation more in females than in males. This highlights the fact that socialization processes are gendered and parents have a role in improving gender disparity in participation of youth. Therefore both an enabling sociopolitical environment and parental values, not only improves the political efficacy of the young generation but also reduce gender gaps in political engagement that would otherwise only widen with age. Existing literature, particularly in context of the developing world is consistent in its findings in basing poor political participation and gender disparity in politics on structural factors and situational (SES) elements. However our study analyses these issues through the lens of political socialization process and it is the role of educational institutions and parents that we seek to strengthen for a better democracy in future. Keywords: educated youth, political participation, civic engagement, citizenship, political engagement, institutional trust, gender gap, sense of community, internet participation, parental participation, political socialization.