Youth and Satisfaction with Democracy

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Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Literature Review
• Data and Methods
• Results
• Conclusion
• References
• Appendix

• This report examines whether there is a relationship between age and satisfaction with democracy (SWD) in Canada.
• An analysis of the past 10 federal elections (1993–2021) using data from the Canadian Election Study found that satisfaction with democracy (SWD) has been on a slight downward trend since the 42nd general election in 2015.
• Canadian youth have experienced the largest declines in SWD, decreasing roughly 6 and 8 percentage points for youths aged 18–24 and 25–39 respectively from 2015 to 2021.
• Younger cohorts are also more dissatisfied relative to older cohorts at comparable stages of the life cycle. Millennials (born 1981–1996) have experienced the largest decline in SWD, dropping roughly 9 percentage points between 2015 to 2019.
• People's evaluations of their own financial situation was not a strong predictor of SWD. However, evaluation of the wider economy are stronger predictors of SWD, specifically in recent years.
• The findings reveal an increasing generational divide in SWD. Although SWD has decreased by an average of 5 percentage points since 2015, this decrease is more apparent in younger generations relative to older generations. However, when compared over a longer period of time (1993–2021), SWD has decreased approximately 1 percentage point for all age groups together.

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