Age, Income and Education and their Effect on Interest in Politics

Introduction

No nation can claim of its sovereignty unless its own people represent its political affairs. To sustain the essence of democracy, it is vital that its inhabitants show a certain level of interest in politics. Nation's Interest in politics does not only enhance the accountability of politicians, but also leads to effective future leadership. As Change in political affairs directly affects the lives and economic welfare of the people, it would be very detrimental and intimidating for a nation to show indifferent attitude towards its political happenings (Dostie-Goulet, p. 406).

With the immense growth in media coverage, perception of people towards their leaders is changing. This awareness in people is leading them to participate in different protests which are causing major commotions at the macro level in United States and in the rest of the world. Individual interest towards politics may vary due to a number of factors, and it is high time to identify and address those factors to understand and create a link of interest in politics with these factors.

Hypothesis

To start the research, different independent variables are determined which directly or indirectly influence people's interest in politics. The first hypothesis of the paper says that interest in politics increase with age i.e. as people becomes old; their interest in politics also increases. Students at school and college level are very insignificantly connected to politics. As they are not directly influenced by the change in politics, they are indifferent about the political climate of the country. Contrary, older Americans who are at their professional level have more interest in politics than young Americans. The reason for showing more concerns towards politics is that, they are more likely to have their businesses or personal properties which are directly linked with the economical and political conditions in the country. Any change in economic policy affects the value of their assets. External factors such as interest rates, inflation rates, tax rates and the political environment can adversely or favorably affect the profitability of a person owning a business or property. So it can be inferred that as young Americans are less affected by the changing macro policies in US, they are comparably less interested in politics than the older Americans.

Another reason why this paper believes that older Americans are more interested in Politics than younger Americans is their inclination towards different TV programs. Young generation goes more towards entertainment channels while the older one generally opts for a News channel. One private US based news channel, Fox News revealed that median age of Fox News viewers is 65 (Ponder, p. 1).

As it can easily be inferred, the viewers of the News Channels are the Older Americans while the younger Americans finds the entertainment media more interesting which hinders their concerns for politics. The same reference also highlights the factor that people tends to be more inclined towards politics after their retirement, thus it further strengthen our hypothesis that young people ...