The Bob Graham Center for Public Service provides a wide variety of programs for students and the larger public on topics related to public service, public leadership and civic engagement.
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Generation Next: Citizenship and the Millennials
September 28, 2010
Molly Andolina, a professor of political science at DePaul University who is one of the leading experts on the civic instincts of Generation Y, young people ages 18 to 29, spoke at the Bob Graham Center for Public Service on September 28th.
Andolina has worked closely with the Pew Research Center in its detailed studies of the rates of trust, volunteerism, voting habits and overall civic activity of the generation that is part of the “Baby Boomlet,” the young people born in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In addition to their other unique qualities, they are the first electronically “connected” generation in U.S. history, as well as the most racially and ethnically diverse.
In terms of civic participation, Millennials have matched other adults in some civic engagement activities, such as volunteering and consumer activism, but have lagged in others like voting and contacting public officials. Still, the 2008 election saw a historic rise in voting behavior for this age group, shrinking the turnout gap between generations to the smallest it has been since 18-year-olds were given the right to vote in 1972. Millennials were among Barack Obama’s strongest supporters in 2008, backing him for president by more than a two-to-one ratio (66 percent to 32 percent) while older adults were giving just 50 percent of their votes to the Democratic nominee. This was the largest disparity between younger and older voters recorded in four decades of modern exit polling, according to the Pew Research Center.