Poverty, Unemployment, and Political Action

The poor and the unemployed are politically less interested and active than persons above the poverty line and the working population. Compared to other European democracies, Germany shows above-average levels of inequality of political participation. Data from the German Socio-economic Panel Study (SOEP) suggest that this inequality has been increasing in the past three decades. The data also indicate at an individual level that political participation does not decline in response to job loss and loss of income. Rather, the low levels of political involvement existed prior to these events and can in part be attributed to social origin.