Does Education Foster Civic-Minded Citizens? Evidence from a Compulsory Schooling Reform

Daniel Almén, Mikael Elinder (), Per Engström, Oscar Erixson, Erik Lundberg and Mårten Palme ()
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Daniel Almén: Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University
Mikael Elinder: Department of Economics, Uppsala University
Per Engström: Department of Economics, Uppsala University
Mårten Palme: Department of Economics, Stockholm University

No 1515, Working Paper Series from Research Institute of Industrial Economics

Abstract: We exploit education reforms in Sweden and other European countries to estimate the causal effects of longer and modernized compulsory education on civic engagement. In most countries, compulsory education was extended by 1–2 years, and the curricula were reformed to better foster democratic and socially responsible citizens. We use high-quality, population-wide register data from Sweden and survey data from the other countries on key measures of civic engagement: voting in elections, charitable giving, and blood donations. Our estimates are generally precise and close to zero, allowing us to rule out even comparatively small positive effects. These results suggest that the post-WWII education reforms in Europe under study were unsuccessful in fostering more civic-minded citizens, and the additional years of schooling attributed to these reforms did not contribute to the positive association between educational attainment and civic engagement also observed in the data.

Keywords: Education reforms; Civic engagement; Prosocial behaviour; Political participation; Voting; Charitable giving; Blood donation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D64 D73 I21 N34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2025-01-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-pol
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