The dynamic effects of education on voter turnout

In this paper I investigate the dynamic relationship between formal education and voter turnout over the past half century. I reframe Brody's puzzle about why rising education levels did not produce higher voter turnout using The American Voter's “funnel of causality” to allow for a dynamic relationship between education and turnout. Analyzing survey data from 1952 to 2004, I show that the effect of college education increased starting in 1980s, thereby magnifying the ability of educational attainment to predict turnout. In contrast, education had a constant effect on political knowledge, another common measure of civic engagement. I conclude by evaluating several explanations for these divergent results.