However, empirically there’s evidence that generations tend to vote in their self-interest when it comes to issues that have different costs and benefits across time. Here’s Gabriel Ahlfeldt summing up some results from a recent paper:
“[O]lder voters are less likely to support measures that protect the environment, promote sustainable use of energy or improve transport. Older voters are also less likely to support expenditures on education or welfare policies, such as unemployment benefits, but they are more likely to support expenditures on health systems. The reasons for these tendencies can be different in every category. But it is difficult to find a singular explanation other than generational self-interest, which would explain why older voters tend to be generally less supportive of expenditures that benefit other generations and projects that have positive expected effects in the long run, but costs in the short run. It fits the bill that where it is harder to think of generational-specific interests such as on questions related to animal protection, women’s rights or urban development, there is also no evidence of a generation gap.”
I don’t think this is a very fair summary. Taking the environmental example, for example, older people are more supportive of nuclear power:
From the whole model in Table2, we know that five sociodemographic variables show a significant impact on the acceptance of nuclear power. Age and education have a positive impact on acceptance, whereas gender, social class, and residence have a negative impact on it. As people become older, they reveal more positive attitude toward nuclear power. Such an older-age effect confirmed the research findings by Slovic et al. [8]. Enlightenment from education increases support for nuclear power. According to Kim et al. [16], higher education brings out more acceptance. - Comparative Analysis of Public Attitudes toward Nuclear Power Energy across 27 European Countries by Applying the Multilevel Model
Yet being pro-nuclear power seems like the more long-termist solution. Nuclear power stations are very expensive, and cost billion of dollars to create, but once built they can generate electricity very cheaply and reliably for a very long time—and with essentially no carbon emissions. The relative opposition of young people suggests that either older people are not voting in a more short-sighted fashion, or that the inexperience of young people outweighs this effect.
Similarly, lets look at the core case study that Ahlfeldt et al. discuss: Stuttgart’s new train station. They find that older people tended to vote against the transit investment, and suggest this is because old people wouldn’t be alive for as long to reap the benefits.
However, they omit to mention that, like many large government projects, the project ended up running dramatically over-budget and behind schedule:
According to newly released official calculations, the total costs for the Stuttgart 21 railway station could reach EUR 8.2 billion, twice as high as the estimate of EUR 4.5 billion presented at the start of the project. The increase was driven by higher building costs due to a booming German construction industry and tight domestic labor market, problems concerning the building site, and a desire by the management of Deutsche Bahn to create a financial buffer against the risk of future price increases. The new figures released were based on an assessment by the accountancy firm Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) and the engineering company Emch+Berger.
Additionally, the completion date of the project was pushed back for a fifth time to 2025, four years later than originally anticipated. (source)
It seems reasonable to think that older voters would have developed a sense of suspicion over time about upfront estimates—an intuitive sense of planning fallacy, and problems with the political process. With the benefit of these more accurate views, it would be rational for them to be more likely to reject the project; the problem lies in the naïvety of the young voters.
The authors seem to have considered a similar idea… but strangely assume that experience could only make one more in favour of large projects:
Experience with similar projects in the past combined with a sense of morale could theoretically imply that the likelihood of support could increase with age,if the project is perceived as socially desirable.
What’s more, that age brings wisdom should have been an obvious hypothesis, as if you look at the controls in their tables, you’ll see that higher levels of education also lead to opposition to the project (assuming I read the table correctly; the authors conveniently did not describe this result in the text). So basically they found that both more educated and more experienced people opposed the project, a project that did indeed fall short of expectations, and yet attributed this to selfishness instead!
I don’t think this is a very fair summary. Taking the environmental example, for example, older people are more supportive of nuclear power:
Yet being pro-nuclear power seems like the more long-termist solution. Nuclear power stations are very expensive, and cost billion of dollars to create, but once built they can generate electricity very cheaply and reliably for a very long time—and with essentially no carbon emissions. The relative opposition of young people suggests that either older people are not voting in a more short-sighted fashion, or that the inexperience of young people outweighs this effect.
Similarly, lets look at the core case study that Ahlfeldt et al. discuss: Stuttgart’s new train station. They find that older people tended to vote against the transit investment, and suggest this is because old people wouldn’t be alive for as long to reap the benefits.
However, they omit to mention that, like many large government projects, the project ended up running dramatically over-budget and behind schedule:
It seems reasonable to think that older voters would have developed a sense of suspicion over time about upfront estimates—an intuitive sense of planning fallacy, and problems with the political process. With the benefit of these more accurate views, it would be rational for them to be more likely to reject the project; the problem lies in the naïvety of the young voters.
The authors seem to have considered a similar idea… but strangely assume that experience could only make one more in favour of large projects:
What’s more, that age brings wisdom should have been an obvious hypothesis, as if you look at the controls in their tables, you’ll see that higher levels of education also lead to opposition to the project (assuming I read the table correctly; the authors conveniently did not describe this result in the text). So basically they found that both more educated and more experienced people opposed the project, a project that did indeed fall short of expectations, and yet attributed this to selfishness instead!