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discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/229707455

What Small Spatial Scales Are Relevant as

Electoral Contexts for Individual Voters? The
Importance of the Household on Turnout at the
2001 General Election
ARTICLE in AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE JUNE 2009
Impact Factor: 2.76 DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2009.00397.x

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What Small Spatial Scales Are Relevant as Electoral

Contexts for Individual Voters? The Importance of the
Household on Turnout at the 2001 General Election
David Cutts University of Manchester
Edward Fieldhouse University of Manchester
For many years, scholars of voting behavior have been thwarted in their attempts to identify micro spatial variations in
turnout by data limitations. This has meant that most analyses have been ecological, which has implications for valid
inference. Here, for the first time, a hierarchical approach is used to show the relative importance of several micro spatial
scales, including the household, on voter participation. The findings highlight the importance of the household context.
While those who live together often turn out together, the relative level of clustering within households as opposed to between
geographical areas is found to be more important for two-person households compared to other households. Even after
taking account of whether individuals are likely to self-select others from similar social backgrounds or with similar political
attitudes, there is strong evidence of large and significant household effects on voter participation.

or many years, scholars of British voting behavior

have been thwarted in their attempts to identify
micro spatial variations in turnout by data limitations. The scarcity of data with detailed spatial resolution
has meant that most analyses have been ecological, often at the constituency scale,1 which has implications for
valid inference (Johnston et al. 2005a). Despite these data
difficulties, much of the debate about the influence of geographical context on voting patterns has focused on these
small spatial scales (Agnew 1987; Cox 1969; Orford and
Schuman 2002; Taylor and Johnston 1979), with prominence given to the effects of local interaction in social
networks (Books and Prysby 1991, 1999; Miller 1978).
Put simply, both early and recent studies of voting behavior have claimed that when individuals make electoral
choices, they do so after taking into account the values,
expectations, and preferences of others including family, friends, work colleagues, and neighbours (Berelson,
Lazarsfeld, and McPhee 1954; Huckfeldt, Johnson, and
Sprague 2005; Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995; Lazarsfeld,
Berelson, and Gaudet 1948; Pattie and Johnston 2000).
Electoral decisions are not immune to influence from the

immediate social context of peoples lives, even when individual characteristics are taken into account (Gimpel,
Dyck, and Shaw 2004; Johnston et al. 2004, 2005b). Research on neighbourhood effects in Britain and the United
States has established that spatial polarization of voting exceeds that which might be expected given the sociodemographic polarization of the population (Johnston
et al. 2007). This is often attributed to the idea that
people who talk together, vote together (Miller 1978;
Pattie and Johnston 2000), especially people in the same
kinship networks (Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995; Pattie
and Johnston 2000, 2001). Even within neighbourhoods,
more recent studies have drawn attention to the household as the main locale where political discussions and
decisions occur (Zuckerman 2005). Initial explorations
suggest that people who live together, not only vote together, but also change their votes together (Johnston
et al. 2005a). Context clearly matters in politics, but which
context?
While British studies have shown spatial variations
in voting at scales ranging from the household to the
region (Johnston et al. 2005a, 2005b), none have been

David Cutts is a Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Social Change, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, Oxford Road,
Manchester, M13 9PL, UK (david.cutts@manchester.ac.uk). Edward Fieldhouse is Professor of Social Sciences, Institute for Social Change,
School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK (edward.fieldhouse@manchester.ac.uk).
1

Parliamentary constituencies are the areas used to elect Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons, which is the primary
legislative chamber in the United Kingdom. At the 2001 General Election, there were 659 constituencies, each electing one MP using the
first past the post system.

American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 53, No. 3, July 2009, Pp. 726739

C 2009,

726

Midwest Political Science Association

ISSN 0092-5853

HOUSEHOLD EFFECTS ON TURNOUT

able to establish, statistically, the relative importance of

these scales. Here, for the first time, a hierarchical (or
multilevel) modelling approach is used to show the relative importance of these micro spatial scales on voter
participation. Our unique hierarchical dataset permits,
for the first time, the simultaneous evaluation of the
relevance of various scales of interaction, including the
household,2 the immediate neighbourhood (postcode),3
and the polling district4 and electoral division (ward).5
A hierarchical nested model design (households within
postcodes within wards) is therefore used to assess the
relative importance of these various small spatial scales
on voter turnout. We show that the household is by far
the most influential electoral context and, moreover, it is
found to be relatively more important than spatial clustering among two-person households than among other
households. Even after taking account of whether individuals are likely to self-select others from similar social
backgrounds or with similar political attitudes, there is
strong evidence of large and significant household effects
on voter participation.

Context and Voting

The Household
Early U.S. studies emphasized the role of the household
as the prime locale for the acquisition of political prefer2

For simplicity, in this article we use household to refer to people

living at the same postal address. We use the term household
clustering and spatial clustering to refer to the size of the intraarea correlations at the household and geographical area levels,
respectively.

U.K. postcodes are only equivalent to U.S. zip codes at a certain

scale. In the United Kingdom, there is a four-level hierarchy (BP,
BP1, BP1 2, and BP1 2EX). Here we analyze the smallest of these
scales which represent a portion of a street. These are very much
smaller than a U.S. zip code. On the U.K. electoral register, streets
are subdivided into these smallest scale postcodes (around 20 or
so households). We also investigated street effects, but as spatial
units, postcodes are more meaningful given that they are smaller,
less variable in size, and more likely to coincide with immediate
neighbourhoods.

A polling district is the area created by the division of a constituency, ward, or division into smaller parts within which a polling
place can be determined which is convenient to electors. A polling
place is the building or area in which polling stations are designated.
These are where electors vote.

A ward is an electoral division primarily and forms the unit of representation in local government. They are, however, nested within
parliamentary constituencies and can be used as a unit of aggregation in studies of parliamentary elections. Wards vary in size by
the type of place, with an average population of 5,500 and typically
between 2,000 and 10,000 electors. Wards tend to be much smaller
in rural areas than in urban areas.

727
ences (Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee 1954; Jennings
and Niemi 1968) and stressed its importance on voting
patterns, particularly how electoral participation tended
to be a joint household activity (Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and
McPhee 1954; Glaser 1959). More recent work suggests
that people who live together may take political cues from
one another, and this may enhance political engagement
(Zuckerman and Kotler-Berkowitz 1998). Those who
have close social relationships are therefore more likely to
vote than those who do not; persons who live with others
behave differently than those who live alone (Zuckerman,
Fitzgerald, and Dasovic 2005). Similarly, there is circumstantial evidence that the two electoral choiceswhether
to vote and which party to supportare related, which
adds credence to the claim that electoral participation is
the outcome of social processes (Zuckerman, Fitzgerald,
and Dasovic 2005).
Moreover, political/electoral homogamy, in party
identification and electoral participation, is extremely
high among married couples, with heterogamy more
likely among those who were cohabiting and married
couples with heterogamous family backgrounds (Brynin
2000; Lampard 1997). There is also evidence that married
people turn out to vote in greater proportions than those
who are single, divorced, separated, or live with a partner because they are more attuned to traditional values,
such as a sense of civic duty, than those with other domestic arrangements (Denver 2008). A recent study has
found extremely high levels of intrahousehold agreement
in party support at a general election and also in changes
in voting behavior between elections, although these patterns do vary by household type and size (Johnston et al.
2005a). Political homogamy occurs where there is some
kind of kinship foundation, either through marriage or
cohabitation. While two-person households have high
levels of agreement, there seems to be far less intrahousehold agreement in multiple-adult households (Johnston
et al. 2005a). Recent studies have found that agreement
among married couples increases over time (Zuckerman,
Fitzgerald, and Dasovic 2005). The similarity between
spouses is largely driven by interpersonal influence, with
spouses three times as influential as other relationships
(Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995). The frequency of political discussion with a spouse also has a positive effect
on voter turnout (Zuckerman, Dasovic, and Fitzgerald
2007). More recently, using get-out-the-vote field experiments, Nickerson (2008) shows that 60% of the propensity to vote is passed on to the other member of the
household.
This article emphasizes the importance of the household on voter participation. Despite being mentioned
in early British studies of voting behavior as the main

DAVID CUTTS AND EDWARD FIELDHOUSE

728
locale of political socialization (Butler and Stokes 1974),
the household has, until very recently, been largely ignored (Johnston et al. 2005a). Part of the problem is the
absence of any data often because most electoral surveys
randomly sample one individual within a household, and
simply ignore other permanent residents, e.g., the British
Election Study (BES).6 Furthermore, most studies of the
household which have shown within-household effects
could not differentiate household effects from those in
the neighbourhood or other small-scale effects (Johnston
et al. 2005; e.g., BHPS). For the first time, using a hierarchical dataset, this article examines the existence and
strength of household effects on electoral participation in
Britain relative to other spatial contexts.

Local Context
Numerous analysts have identified variations in turnout
at different spatial scales, independent of voter characteristics. Early studies of the United States, for example,
showed the importance of where voters live relative to
candidates (Key 1949). The persistence of spatial clustering in voting behavior can be attributed either to genuine
contextual effects or simply to the clustering of similar
individuals in geographical space (e.g., McAllister and
Studlar 1992). While unmeasured compositional differences are undoubtedly part of the explanation, there is
also considerable evidence concerning the persistence of
genuine contextual effects on voting. Previous research on
the contextual or neighbourhood effects has considered
a number of causal mechanisms, many of which can be
traced back to Cox (1969). These include acquaintancecircle bias, or social interaction effects which, due to
the tendency for the frequency of interactions to decline
with geographical distance from the home, will tend to
be greater at smaller spatial scales (e.g., Huckfeldt and
Sprague 1995; Miller 1978). These conversion by conversation or contagion theories emphasize how talking
to friends, families, and neighbours may persuade some
people to participate or convert them to vote differently
than they might usually do (Pattie and Johnston 1999).
Evidence from the United States suggests that social networks in other contexts, such as churches or workplaces,
have a similar influence on voting (Huckfeldt, Johnson,
and Sprague 2005; Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995).
Alongside social networks and contagion effects, spatial variations in turnout at smaller scales have also been
attributed to variations in the local environment, such as
levels of unemployment or changes in house prices, as

observed by people in their local milieu (Johnston et al.

2004, 2005b; Pattie and Johnston 2000). Here, the role
of the local media may play a role in mediating their effects and influence political attitudes and how or whether
people vote. At the same time, there are likely to be some
selection effects with individuals choosing (or being constrained) to live in close proximity to people of similar
socioeconomic status.
Spatial variations in voting may also reflect the intensity of party activity, with local constituency campaigning
now accepted as an important influence on electoral participation and the actual outcome (Denver and Hands
1997; Johnston and Pattie 1995). Despite the professionalization and centralization of party campaigns, the local
campaign remains integral in the partys efforts to mobilize its own voters. Party targeting and tactics or seat
marginality often leads to differential activity between
constituencies. Yet, there is growing evidence that parties, through sophisticated local targeting strategies and
grassroots activism, now operate at much smaller spatial electoral scales (both inter- and intraward) in order
to maximize their potential rewards (Cutts 2006). Here
the hierarchical design replicates the small-scale electoral
contexts for individual voters. However, the unique contribution of this article is not to substantiate which of
these processes are most important, but, for the first time,
to establish the relative importance of different spatial
scales for understanding these processes.

Hypotheses
This article focuses on the relative importance of the
household and small spatial scales on voter participation at the 2001 British General Election. Using marked
electoral registers it is possible to measure individual-level
turnout without relying on turnout reported in sample
surveys or ecological inference.7 As explained below, the
nested multilevel design enables a hierarchical logistic regression model to be fitted with the estimates derived
using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) estimation
procedure (Browne et al. 2005; Rasbash et al. 2000). Using
this approach, a number of unresolved questions can be
addressed, specifically, at what level, household, immediate neighbourhood, and ward, do such variations in voter
participation occur, and what the relative importance of
these spatial scales on turnout in 2001 is.
Following this, the focus of the article turns to
the effects of the household on voter participation, in
7

The British Election Study research design involves selecting addresses from the national postcode address register and then interviewing one person chosen at random from within a household.

In the United Kingdom, each name on the electoral register is

marked or stuck through at the polling station when a ballot paper
is issued. These are then retained for one year and one day as a
public record.

HOUSEHOLD EFFECTS ON TURNOUT

particular, investigating intrahousehold turnout in 2001

by household size and whether living with other electors
who vote results in other people in the household voting.
The analysis seeks to substantiate evidence of electoral homogamy where there is some kinship foundation, specifically within two-elector households, most of which exist
through marriage or cohabitation. This leads us to anticipate not only greater high levels of correspondence between electors turning out in two-elector households, but
also higher levels of voting within these households, particularly in comparison with single-elector households,
members of which lack the stimuli of a partner with whom
to visit the polling station. A similar hierarchical approach
is used to model the relative importance of spatial scales
on turnout of individuals living in single, two-elector, and
multiple-elector households. Here the expectation, given
recent scholarly evidence, is that the household level is
more important than other spatial scales for two-elector
households, although this may diminish to some extent
for multiple-elector households.
To substantiate the findings from the electoral registers, we use the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS)
data to gauge the level of household clustering after taking account of the possibility that individuals choose
to live with others from similar social backgrounds and
with similar political attitudes. Notwithstanding that the
household setting is the main locale where interaction that
affects whether one participates or not takes place, it is also
emphasized that going to the polling station is essentially
a physical activity which may be performed collectively.
For these reasons, large and significant household clustering is still expected, even after conditioning for individual
characteristics and attitudes. The hypotheses are:

H1: Different contexts matter, and therefore there will

be variations in voter turnout simultaneously at all
spatial scales modelled.
H2: Due to proximity, the smaller the spatial scale becomes, the more clustering one would expect to
find. There will be a relatively large amount of clustering of voting (or nonvoting) by household.
H3: Household clustering is likely to be relatively more
important than spatial clustering amongst twoelector households compared to other households.
H4: Turnout will be higher in two-elector households,
but, more generally, turnout will be higher among
electors who live with other voters compared to
those who live with nonvoters.
H5: Between-household variance will be significant
even after taking account of individual characteristics and attitudes.

729

Data and Method

This research uses marked electoral registers from the
2001 British General Election, for a sample of 97 wards,
based on a stratified random sample. The sample contains wards from England and Wales and excludes postal
voters. These are regarded as missing because, for any
given recipient of a postal vote, we do not know if the
vote was cast (Fieldhouse and Cutts 2007). All electors
were included in the selected wards, which were used as
the primary sampling units (Cutts et al. 2007).8 In order to address which context really matters, we ascribed
a number of identifiers to each elector in the sample using the address information on the electoral register (for
example, all persons listed under the same postcode were
allocated the same postcode identifier). This produces a
hierarchical dataset that permits us to examine individual
voter turnout at various separate spatial scales simultaneously.9 Those included in the final models were:
1. the household;
2. the postcode or immediate neighbourhood; and
3. the electoral ward.
The sample contains 562,570 individuals who were nested
in 298,464 households (Fieldhouse and Cutts 2007). Because the sample covers the full population of each primary sampling unit, we also have complete information
about voting in each of the sampled units (whether that
is household, postcode, etc.). However, it proved computationally impossible to run the models described below using such large numbers, so we took a 10% random sample of households (56,071 individuals) from the
dataset for this analysis. Subsequently, the separate scales
nested into each other as follows29,778 households in
1,594 postcodes, which in turn are nested in 97 electoral
wards.10 This, as far as we are aware, is novel in the analysis
of turnout, largely because the availability of all electors
8

A number of adjustments were made to the original electoral registers to exclude those not eligible to vote in the 2001 Parliamentary
election. These include foreign nationals eligible to vote in local
elections and attainers who had not reached the voting age limit
by 7 June 2001. We also cleaned up the registers, omitting deaths
and those described as deleted electors (see Fieldhouse and Cutts
2007).

We also explored variation between Census Output Areas (approximately 200 households) and Polling District, but these proved
statistically unimportant when allowing for the three other scales
adopted. Tranmer and Steel (2001) suggest inclusion of redundant
levels in a multilevel model can bias the results, and these were
therefore excluded.

10
An examination of univariates revealed variations in turnout between the 97 wards (mean turnout 3195.2; SD 1810.0) and between
1,594 postcodes (mean turnout for the sample 2.7; SD for the

DAVID CUTTS AND EDWARD FIELDHOUSE

730
within the same postcode (as we have here) is rarely available. The clustered nature of the sample has considerable
advantages when attempting to understand within- and
between-area variations.
In addition to the sample of marked electoral registers, we use the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS)
to examine whether household variation is still prominent after controlling for self-selection of others from
similar social backgrounds and with similar political attitudes.11 Wave 11 of the BHPS is used to coincide with
questions relating to voting behavior in the 2001 General Election. These data permit a two-level hierarchical
model approach (individuals nested in households), with
the addition of individual-level characteristics not available in the electoral registers.
Aside from the availability of this unique dataset and
the contemporaneous BHPS data, 2001 is a rather good
British election upon which to base this analysis. The incumbent Labour government was returned to power with
a very slightly reduced majority, and there was nothing exceptional about the spatial distribution of turnout, which
ranged from 34.1% in Liverpool Riverside to 72.3% in
Winchester, with a standard deviation of 6.4% (up from
5.6% at the previous election).12 Indeed, at 59% the level
of turnout was sufficiently low by U.K. standards to ensure a good deal of variance in and between spatial units
at both ends of the distribution.

Model Specification
The complex hierarchical sample design, together with
the desire to estimate the spatial source of variation in
turnout, suggests a hierarchical modelling is necessary.
Hierarchical or multilevel modelling is a methodology
which provides a framework for exploring how relationships vary across hierarchical structures, whether these be
natural or introduced in the sample design. The approach
sample 2.7). There is a high degree of variance between households
as shown later in this article.
11
The BHPS is an annual survey consisting of a nationally representative sample of about 5,500 households recruited in 1991, containing a total of approximately 10,000 interviewed individuals. It is a
multipurpose study that follows the same representative sample of
individuals over a period of years. The survey is household-based,
interviewing every adult member of sampled households, allowing
the examination of patterns of voting and attitudes in and between
household.
12
Turnout variations at the constituency level are reported here
even though they are not used as a level in the hierarchical model
to provide an insight into the general spatial distribution of electoral
participation. Moreover, there is no available data about the turnout
by ward or lower electoral geographies at the general election.

is especially useful because it is helpful to understand the

variability associated with each level of the hierarchy. For
the analysis of our marked electoral registers, variance
components models are fitted in order to generate estimates of variance at the different spatial levels. It should
be noted that the primary purpose of these models is not
to identify the causes of voting and nonvoting (which
are the subject of much other research), but rather to
identify the sources of variance. To achieve this goal, the
modelling strategy proceeds through the following four
stages:
Model 0: models the variation in turnout among
individuals
Model 1: models the variation in turnout among individuals within households
Model 2: models the variation in turnout among individuals within households, within postcodes
Model 3: models the variation in turnout among individuals within households, within postcodes, within
electoral wards
It is possible to illustrate the basic hierarchical model
structure by using Model 1 as a simple example. Here
individuals at level 1 are nested within households at
level 2. This hierarchical binary logistic model, with no
predictor variables, can be expressed as follows (Goldstein
2003; Johnston et al. 2005):
E(Yij ) =
ij = exp(0 + 0j )[(1 + exp((0 + 0j )]1
In simple terms, the expectation of the binary outcome Y ij for individual i in household j is the propensity
to vote
ij , which is determined by the overall average
term or fixed part of the model 0 , and the random
part or household term 0j , which is allowed to vary.
The binary outcome at level 1 follows a Bernoulli distribution, while the household terms is from a Gaussian
distribution, which is conventionally summarized by the
between-household variance term 20 (Goldstein 2003).
The hierarchical logistic models are fitted using MLwiN 3.2, with the estimates for the model derived using
a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) estimation procedure (Browne et al. 2005). It is common to estimate
hierarchical models using estimation methods based on
marginal quasi-likelihood (MQL) or penalized (predictive) quasi-likelihood (PQL) procedures. However, when
fitting binary response models, both of these quasilikelihood estimators lead to an underestimation of the
random effects or variance parameters, particularly when
they are large and there are small numbers of observations
within higher-level units (Browne et al. 2005; Goldstein
and Rasbash 1996; Rodriguez and Goldman 1995). As

HOUSEHOLD EFFECTS ON TURNOUT

Johnston notes, this is particularly relevant for individuals in households, given that the latter often contain relatively few individuals (particularly when one considers
those electors eligible to vote), and between-household
effects often tend to be fairly large (Johnston et al. 2007).
While the PQL estimation is also less biased than the
MQL method for the fixed effects (Goldstein and Rasbash
1996), recent evidence suggests that the Bayesian estimation procedure (MCMC method with diffuse priors) is
less biased than either of the quasi-likelihood methods
for binary response models (Browne et al. 2005).
The MCMC approach simulates new values for each
unknown parameter of interest by sampling from the distribution for those parameters conditional on the values
for the other parameters. It also uses the data and the
prior information for a parameter through a prior distribution.13 In simple terms, an algorithm proceeds in a
series of steps where a proposal distribution14 is used to
generate a new value for the parameter of interest and the
method either accepts the new value or rejects it, which
in the case of rejection results in the chain remaining
where it is. Once the chain has become stationary or converged, inferences can be made from the chain values.
Here, we used MLwiN software to estimate the starting
values using first-order PQL, then 5,000 runs to derive
the desired proposal distribution (discarded after convergence of the burn in period), followed by 100,000
simulated random draws to obtain the final estimates. We
use the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm and the default
diffuse gamma priors for variance parameters. The estimates in Table 1 are based on the mean of the simulated
values, and the standard error is the standard deviation of
the converged distribution. These estimates correspond
to the traditional maximum likelihood estimate and its
standard error.
The Deviance Information Criterion (DIC) compares the relative effectiveness of different models and
is used to evaluate their goodness of fit (Spiegelhalter,
Best, and van der Linde 2002; van der Linde 2005). The
13
The estimation approach proceeds in two stages. Firstly, there is
an initial burn in period, the length of which determines whether
the simulation will get to equilibrium of the correct distribution.
Following convergence, these simulations are discarded (used only
to initialize the Markov chain). Secondly, through a simulation
of random draws from the joint posterior distribution of all the
parameters, the MCMC estimation method uses these simulated
values to summarize the underlying distribution (Browne 2002;
Goldstein and Browne 2002).
14
When using Metropolis-Hastings sampling, the MCMC estimation method generates new values from a proposal distribution,
which in turn determines how to select a new parameter value
given the current parameter value. A proposal distribution therefore suggests a new value for the parameter of interest, which is
either accepted as the new estimate or rejected (see Browne 2002).

731

TABLE 1 Variance Components Analysis for

Each Stage of the MCMC Multilevel
Model of Turnout in 2001
Model
1
2
3

Level

Estimate

SE

Household
Household
Postcode
Household
Postcode
Ward

9.064
7.647
1.149
7.603
0.859
0.384

(0.298)
(0.267)
(0.095)
(0.261)
(0.096)
(0.071)

Coefficients shown in bold are significant at the 0.05 level.

DIC statistic accounts for the number of parameters in

the model, and consequently a small difference in DIC
between the variance components models would suggest
little improvement.15

Model Results
The initial stage (model 0) only models variations among
individuals. The following stages introduce separate spatial scales within which individuals are nested, so the
relative importance of each separate spatial level can be
gauged. Table 1 shows the estimated coefficients for each
of the separate levels in the three random effects models,
together with their standard errors. In all models, each
spatial level is statistically significant, indicating differences in the propensity of individuals to turn out in 2001
by household address, by postcode, and by electoral ward.
The observed variation between postcodes remains
statistically significant throughout, although the size of
the coefficient in Model 3 is smaller than in the previous
model. This suggests some of the immediate neighbourhood variation is attributable to processes at the ward
level. Nevertheless, this is the first hierarchical analysis
of turnout, which incorporates postcode as a spatial unit
and, arguably, the postcode is the most authentic locale
in which neighbourhood effects occur. The statistical
importance of the postcode level relative to other small
spatial scales will give heart to advocates of the neighbourhood effect hypothesis although such inferences are
only circumstantial, given that such processes are not directly tested here. The evidence stresses the relative significance of both the postcode and ward level, with the
former larger than the latter. This might be due to social
15
Generally, a difference of less than 2 between models suggests no
difference, while a difference of 10 or above indicates an improvement in the goodness of fit (Burnham and Anderson 2002).

DAVID CUTTS AND EDWARD FIELDHOUSE

732

TABLE 2 The Goodness of Fit (Deviance

Information Criteria) at Each Stage
of the MCMC Multilevel Model of
Turnout in 2001
Model
0
1
2
3

DIC
77216.17
57661.82
57138.60
56990.06

homogeneity or neighbourhood effects, or, more likely, a

combination of both, although determining whether this
is the case is beyond the scope of this article.
Of greater statistical significance is household variation. While the introduction of other spatial scales did
lead to a fairly small reduction in the coefficient, the most
significant variation by far is between households. Using the latent variable approach (Goldstein and Rasbash
1996), the intraclass household correlation is estimated
to be 7.603/(7.603 + 3.29),16 which suggests that 70% of
the variation is at the household level compared to 26%
at the individual level. This is a rare example of studies
using microdata where higher-level variance (household)
is larger than the individual. Part of the explanation may
lie in the act of voting itself. Unlike deciding which party
to support, casting a ballot involves a physical act and
is likely to be performed collectively; for example, often
people walk to the polling station together to cast their
vote. It therefore seems that a great deal of the total variation in turnout in Britain in 2001 can be accounted for
by the household context. This is also indicated by the
goodness-of-fit statistics (Table 2). The introduction of
variation within household addresses in Model 1 led to
a significant reduction in the DIC value. Following this,
each stage results in a further reduction in the DIC value.
Nevertheless, these reductions are fairly small when compared to the change in DIC value from Model 0 to Model
1, although each is statistically significant (Burnham and
Anderson 2002).

2001 Voter Turnout within

Households
A number of U.K. voting studies have shown that living alone reduces the probability of turning out (Brynin
16

The standard variance for a logistic distribution is 3.29.

2000; Zuckerman 2005). This may be because those living alone are less likely to have a stake in society or have
lower levels of social capital. For instance, married men
and women rank much higher on measures of social capital, while those living alone are significantly less trusting
and less engaged in civic activities (Putnam 1995). For
various reasons (as discussed above) we might expect
higher intrahousehold variation in two-elector households than in larger households. Firstly, individuals forming a two-elector household or partnership are relatively
likely to self-select those from similar backgrounds who
may share political attitudes. Secondly, frequent discussion in the household may result in a convergence of
views, or the conversion of those individuals with previous opposing views to shared attitudes, although in
some cases it may lead to opposing views being strengthened (Johnston et al. 2005a; Zuckerman, Fitzgerald, and
Dasovic 2005). Such social relationships are likely to
be less intimate, with discussion less frequent in larger
households, which may affect turnout. It was suggested
above that voting is an activity which is often performed
collectively. Not only does this imply high intrahousehold correlations, but also having someone to vote with
increases the likelihood of voting and may suggest that
two-elector households should be more likely to vote.
Moreover, two-elector households may simply be proxies
for marital status or age effects (individuals are more likely
to be from middle or older age groups), both of which are
positively associated with high levels of civic engagement,
including voting. Consequently, given the overwhelming
importance of household address on turnout relative to
other spatial scales as shown in Table 1, we might expect two features to emerge from our analyses. Firstly,
voter turnout in the 2001 British General Election is
likely to be higher in two-elector households than singleor multiple-elector households. Secondly, the amount of
variation when modelled will arguably be different for
each household size, as not all of the spatial scales will
be equally relevant for people living in different household sizes. However, it is likely that there will be a higher
intrahousehold correlation for two-elector households.
In other words, it is probable that the variation between
two-elector households will be greater than between other
household sizes.
To explore this, it is possible to use the original
sample of marked electoral registers. This includes voting data for more than 560,000 electors in just under
300,000 households (Table 3).17 Around one-fifth of the
17
The total turnout estimated from our full sample is 56.6%. This
differs from the actual turnout rate for England and Wales in 2001
of 58.4%. This reflects the sampling variation due to the selection

HOUSEHOLD EFFECTS ON TURNOUT

733

TABLE 3 Percentage Turnout of All People

(Weighted) by Number of Electors in
Household (Design and Vote Weight
Vgweight)
Household
Electors
1
2
34
5 or more

Turnout
51.3%
63.0%
57.1%
45.6%

(117808)
(125608)
(47351)
(7517)

N of Households in parentheses. Total Households in dataset =

298464.

overall sample lived in single-elector households. Here,

turnout was more than 7% below the national figure
for England and Wales. This finding is similar to previous evidence; those who live together are more likely to
turn out than those who live alone. As expected, those
living in multiple registered adult households (five or
more) were also less likely to participate than those in
two-elector households. It is possibly more difficult for
individuals in larger households to engage in the frequent interaction necessary to build strong ties through
which other individuals may be influenced to change their
behavior. Also multiple-elector households include student households, which tend to have low participation
rates and often do not have the strong immediate social
and personal networks of families and other household
types.
The overall pattern is therefore as hypothesized.
Turnout was highest for those individuals in two-elector
registered households and fairly high among individuals living in three- or four-person registered households,
although the latter was just over 1% below the national
figure for England and Wales.18 It is probable that a high
proportion of the two-elector registered households in
the dataset represents the traditional nuclear family. This
household composition may be more politically engaged
than others for economic and social welfare reasons (e.g.,
of wards. We adjust for this by applying the stratification weighting
factor (the design and vote vgweight), so that the total number of
voters and nonvoters estimated from the sample equals the actual
numbers of voters and nonvoters in England and Wales. The application of these weights makes the sample nationally representative.
18
Turnout may have been lower among individuals in three- or fourelector households because of the increasing tendency of younger
adult members of the household to abstain from voting. This trend
has grown steadily in recent general elections and has been noted,
but not proven, in a previous study of voting within households
(see Johnston et al. 2005).

childcare, education, etc.) and because they may feel that

participating in the political process is a means of shaping
or preserving their childrens future. Moreover, they are
more likely to do things together for practical reasons,
including going to the polling station. Here, there is further circumstantial evidence that those who live together
often turn out together, and that household composition
clearly matters. Of course, this could be the result of selfselection, the outcome of a convergence of opinions (Kan
and Heath 2003), or simply the existence of some kinship
relationship (marriage or cohabitation) among members
of the household (Johnston et al. 2005a).

Modelling Variation
by Household Size
In keeping with other recent evidence (Johnston et al.
2005), it seems that individuals living in two-elector
households are more likely to turn out than those living in multiple-elector households or living alone. While
there is not any information about whether individuals
in the sample are married or cohabiting, it is reasonable
to assume that, for the overwhelming majority, some kinship foundation exists in these households. Given these
findings, for those individuals living in two-elector households it is likely that household is relatively more important than other spatial scales as a context for voter
participation. With social relationships likely to be less
intimate and discussion less frequent in households with
more adult members, one might expect the household
context to be less important in such households. Equally,
the habit of doing things together may be less established.
Yet, not all levels will be equally relevant for different
household sizes, and arguably the expectation is for variation to be different for each household size. Nonetheless,
using a similar hierarchical nested model design as before
(households in postcodes in wards), it is still possible to
assess the relative importance of these various small spatial scales on voter turnout in these different household
sizes.
Table 4 shows the estimated coefficients by household
size for each of the separate spatial levels. As hypothesized, for two-elector households, by far the largest and
most significant variation is that between households. For
multiple households, the household remains statistically
significant, but the estimated coefficient is much lower
than that for two-elector households.19 Figure 1 shows
19
We separated the three or more multiple household category into
three- and four-person households and five or more households to

DAVID CUTTS AND EDWARD FIELDHOUSE

734

TABLE 4 Variance Components Analysis for

Each Stage of the MCMC Multilevel
Model of Turnout in 2001 (Single
People/Two People/Three or More)

TABLE 5 Impact of Living with Other Voters:

Percentage Turnout Unweighted and
Weighted (Design and Vote Weight
Vgweight)

Model

Household
Composition

Single People
Two People Only

Three People or more

Level

Estimate

SE

Postcode
Ward
Household
Postcode
Ward
Household
Postcode
Ward

0.480
0.123
20.66
0.035
0.919
3.526
0.034
0.173

(0.074)
(0.030)
(1.015)
(0.062)
(0.192)
(0.174)
(0.051)
(0.044)

Coefficients shown in bold are significant at the 0.05 level.

FIGURE 1 Partitioning the Variance from

MCMC Models of Turnout (Overall
and by Household Size)

Single Elector
Two Elector Partner Nonvoter
Two Elector Partner Voter
Multi Nonvoters
Multi Elector with Voters

Overall
(UW)

Overall
(W)

47.7
20.0
86.5
12.9
67.9

51.3
20.9
88.3
14.2
69.4

variation may reflect a clustering of household size by

postcode; for example, some postcodes have many twoperson registered households and other postcodes with
numerous multiple-elector households. Generally, however, it is the household setting where most variation lies,
and the arena in which frequent discussion, learning, and
trust form the basis of cue giving in social relationships,
and it is within this context that people mainly receive
these cues which strongly affect whether one votes or not.

Living with Other Voters

the difference with more than 86% of the variation at the

household level for two-elector households compared to
51% for multiple households.20
A statistically significant amount of spatial clustering exists at the ward level for single, two-elector, and
multiple-elector households, although it is far smaller
than the variation for household address. For single people, 13% of the variation in turnout is at the postcode
level. However, this scale becomes redundant for those
living in two- or multiple-person households relative to
the other spatial levels. This suggests that the postcode
see whether this made any discernible difference to the estimated
coefficients at the different spatial levels. We found little difference in the estimated coefficients for each spatial scale for either
household group.
20
As noted earlier, we use the latent variable approach. For example,
the intra-unit household variation for those living in two-elector
households is 20.66/(20.66 + 3.29).

Perhaps a more intuitive way of understanding household variation is to illustrate the impact of living with
other voters. Table 5 shows the probability of voting for
individuals given the voting behavior of the electors they
live with. As reported above, just over half of electors
living alone voted in 2001. More notable is the effect
of living with other voters. Whereas nearly nine out of
ten voters living in a two-elector household where the
other elector voted, voted themselves, only two out of
ten did so when living with a nonvoter. Similarly, nearly
seven out of ten voters living with a voter in a multipleelector household themselves participated in 2001, while
less than 15% did so when living with no other voters.
Quite clearly, if one person in the household votes, particularly in two-elector households, it is extremely likely that
others in the household will also vote and vice versa. As
mentioned previously, these findings do not control for
individual characteristics, and one would suspect that for
two-elector households in particular there would be a significant amount of correlation between individual-level
variables (e.g., age). Notwithstanding this, these estimates
are fairly dramatic and provide further circumstantial evidence that there are very high levels of within-household
agreement to turnout, which undoubtedly reinforces the
saliency of this spatial scale on voter participation in the
United Kingdom.

HOUSEHOLD EFFECTS ON TURNOUT

Modelling Within- and BetweenHousehold Variation in Turnout

Using BHPS Data
So far, the findings have clearly shown the saliency of the
household context on turnout, both relative to other micro spatial scales and after disaggregating by household
size. Different household sizes have different amounts
of variation. In two-elector households either both are
likely to vote or neither will vote, while in multiple-elector
households perhaps one person will turn out to vote while
others do not. One of the limitations of the data based on
marked electoral registers is the absence of any individual information such as socioeconomic or demographic
characteristics. Consequently, it is virtually impossible to
rule out selection effects as the explanation for the clustering of voters within households (that is because individuals who live together self-select others from similar
socioeconomic backgrounds or with similar political attitudes). To address these questions we use 2001 British
Household Panel Survey data (wave 11), which include
information about individual voting behavior at the 2001
General Election21 and their social and political attitudes.
Notwithstanding unobserved heterogeneity, controlling
for attitudes takes account of the self-selection of household members, but at the same time will inevitably partial
out some of the genuine effect of household discussion.
The residual household variance is therefore likely to be
due to a shared decision to vote than shared social characteristics.
The optimal approach is to simultaneously model individual and household variation using a basic hierarchical modelling structure with individuals at level 1 nested
within households at level 2. Like the earlier models, estimates are derived using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo
(MCMC) estimation procedure. Three models are fitted:
a simple two-level random model with no predictor variables (Model A), a two-level model controlling for a range
of individual socioeconomic variables (social class, marital status, education, gender, tenure, etc.) that have previously been shown to be important influences on turnout
(Model B), and a two-level model with both individual
socioeconomic variables and political attitudes (Model
C). The 2001 BHPS includes questions about each individuals interest in the election, strength of partisanship,
and indicators of engagement in local networks through
voluntary activity in social and local community groups.
21
The data consist of 10,256 households from the 2001 BHPS survey, with a maximum of seven individuals in a household and a
mean household size of 1.67.

735
Similarly, it is possible to include questions about individuals current and changing financial situations, as well as
their financial expectations. Many of these variables have
been included as indicators in rival theories of turnout
(Clarke et al. 2004).
The standardized coefficients22 from the MCMC hierarchical regression models, including only the significant covariates, are reported in Table 6. The main purpose
of standardizing the coefficients is to obtain the relative
importance of different variables in influencing turnout.
The inclusion of individual respondents characteristics
and attitudes led to significant reductions in the DIC
value. These reductions are fairly large and statistically
significant (Burnham and Anderson 2002).
In Model A, the estimate of household variance
(7.260) is lower than the estimate (9.064) recorded from
the marked electoral register data, but still substantial.
The inclusion of individual characteristics and attitudes
in Models B and C, respectively, allows the estimation
of the level-2 variances conditional on these covariates.
In other words, the level-2 estimate is the variation between households after accounting for differential household composition in terms of these individual characteristics. In Model B, a number of predictor variables
are statistically significant and follow the direction one
might expect; for example, if you are married you are
more likely to vote than if you are not, older age groups
are more likely to turn out than those aged between 18
and 24, etc. However, even after controlling for individual
respondents socioeconomic characteristics, the estimate
of between-household variance remains large and significant (6.329). Using the latent variable approach, the
intraclass correlation is 6.329/(6.329 + 3.29), so that just
under 66% of the variation is at the household level. This
suggests that the large household effect is not just a product of selection effects, specifically, people with similar
characteristics living together.
Model C includes respondents attitudes along with
personal characteristics. While some variables were insignificant (voluntary activity), strength of partisanship,
financial expectations, and political interest were statistically significant in the expected direction. Even after the
inclusion of these fixed effects, the between-household
variance remains both large and significant (5.613). The
latent variable approach suggests that 63% of variance is
Coefficients are standardized using the formula bs = (b)(s X )/

/ 3). This is used to standardize the predictors and the depen

dent variable, using
/ 3 = 1.8, the standard logistic distribution,
as the estimate for the standard deviation of the dependent variable
Y. This is the equivalent of standardizing the predictors and leaving
the dependent variable in its original metric (see Menard 2004 for
full details).
22

DAVID CUTTS AND EDWARD FIELDHOUSE

736

TABLE 6 MCMC Standardized Estimates of Multilevel Logistic Model of 2001

Turnout
Predictor Variables

Model A

Constant
1.74
Gender (Base = Male)
Female
Age (Base = Age 1825)
Age 2544
Age 4564
Age 65 and over
Hope & Goldthorpe (Base = Higher Class)
Middle Class
Working Class
Class Missing/NA
Tenure (Base = Owned house outright)
Owned with mortgage
Renting
Tenure Missing
Marital Status (Base = Never Married)
Married
Education (Base = Degree)
A-level
HND/HNC
GCSE/O-level
No Education
Education Missing
Financial Expectations (Base = Better than now)
Worse than now
About the same
Strength of Party Support (Base = Very Strong)
Fairly Strong
Not Very Strong
No Support
Support Missing
Political Interest (Base = Not Interested)
Very Interested
Fairly Interested
Not Very Interested
Government reflects will of people (Base = Disagree)
Agree
Neither Agree nor Disagree
Ordinary people cant influence government (Base = Disagree)
Agree
Neither Agree nor Disagree
Random parts
Between-Household Variance
Bayesian Deviance Information Criteria (DIC)

7.260 (0.502)
16450.27

Model B

Model C

1.21

1.23

0.03

0.12

0.21
0.53
0.69

0.13
0.34
0.44

0.06
0.07

0.13

0.10
0.25
0.08

0.07
0.20
0.07

0.23

0.21

0.12
0.07
0.25
0.29
0.07

0.08
0.07
0.04

0.05
0.09

0.11
0.46
0.92
0.05

0.38
0.68
0.56
0.05

0.04

6.329 (0.435)
15370.86

5.613 (0.430)
13191.23

Note. Bold denotes statistical significance at p = .05. Only significant variables are reported. We included two other
variables to measure attitudes (Government ought to impose earnings ceilings and Government puts nation before
party)both were insignificant.

HOUSEHOLD EFFECTS ON TURNOUT

at the household level. This suggests that those who live

together in the same household have a strong tendency
to vote together regardless of their political attitudes and
interests, thus ruling out the argument that clustering is
simply a product of the convergence of values and characteristics within households.
From these initial explorations, it seems that household variation in turnout cannot be fully explained by individuals who live together from similar socioeconomic
backgrounds or with similar political attitudes. Yet part
of the unexplained household variation may be due to the
actual voting act. Unlike the process of choosing a political party to support (a mental decision), with the possible
exception of postal voting, the act of voting itself involves a
physical activity (going to the polling station) which may
be performed collectively. Few, if any, local studies have
solely examined whether there is a propensity for individuals in the same household to vote together at similar
times, particularly couples, although voting records from
a U.K. local case study provides circumstantial evidence
of this at a recent local election (Cutts 2006).

Conclusion
The primary purpose of this article was to establish the
relative importance of three small spatial scales on voter
participation in 2001. In keeping with spatial theories of
voting (Cox 1969), it has been established that turnout
and voting are spatially clustered, yet scholars have been
frustrated in their attempts to identify variations in voter
participation at small spatial scales by data limitations.
While there is growing evidence that voting operates at
much smaller spatial scales than was previously thought,23
even these studies have been hindered by data difficulties
and the inability to separate the household scale from the
neighbourhood (Johnston et al. 2007). Here, for the first
time, using the nested marked electoral register dataset, it
was possible to examine individual voter turnout at several spatial scales and ascertain their relative importance.
The hierarchical logistic model highlighted differences in
the propensity of individuals to turn out to vote in 2001
at each of these small spatial scales, either by household
address, by postcode, or by ward (H1). Even though the
23
Ron Johnston and his colleagues (2007) have examined the importance of regional effects relative to other spatial scales. Their
main finding is that regional variations in voting are no more than
aggregation effects and that spatial variations in voting occur at
smaller scales. His examination of voter choice examines particular
processes through the incorporation of covariates at different levels
(for example, party spending at the constituency level), something
which we do not seek to do.

737
use of the postcode scale is novel and adds to the findings, the results show that household clustering was far
more important than spatial clustering. This finding upholds the second hypothesis (H2). The household setting
is clearly the main locale where individuals take political
cues from each other, and the main findings add credence
to the claims that interaction within this setting ultimately
affects whether one actually participates or not.
Further evidence of the saliency of the household
context on turnout is apparent after disaggregating by
household size. In general, the results are consistent
with other recent evidence. Turnout is much higher in
two-elector households than single- or multiple-elector
households (H4), which likely reflects some kind of kinship relationship (marriage or cohabitation). Even after
examining the relative importance of small spatial scales
on voter turnout in different household sizes, household
clustering was far more important than spatial clustering for two-elector households than other households
(H3). The analyses of electors who live with other voters also seem to bear this out. Nearly 90% of electors
in two-elector households who live with another voter
voted themselves (H4). This also suggests an answer as to
why turnout is lower in single-elector households: there
is simply nobody in the household to discuss politics with
and nobody with whom to visit the polling station. Furthermore, more detailed survey data provided evidence
of large and significant household clustering, even when
allowing for individual characteristics and attitudes (H5).
These findings reassert the importance of the household context on voter participation and complement
recent studies on voter choice (Johnston et al. 2005;
Zuckerman et al. 2004). To effectively research the processes involved, it is vital to know the spatial scale at which
they are operating, and, by implication, the relative importance of these spatial scales on voter turnout. Previous
research has often assumed that small spatial scales such
as the neighbourhood are the most important (Johnston
et al. 2004). Here we show that the household is by far
the most important influence on voter participation. The
intermediate spatial scale or wider political environment
(here represented by the electoral ward) also appears to
matter, while smaller spatial scales such as the immediate neighbourhood environment are less important. This
implies that further research should focus on the different processes involved at the household and intermediate
spatial scale. For instance, at the household level, these
might include the importance of shared values and beliefs
or political discussion, as well as the potentially communal dimension to going to vote (Zuckerman, Dasovic, and
Fitzgerald 2007). As discussed above, there are numerous
explanations for the spatial clustering of voting at the

DAVID CUTTS AND EDWARD FIELDHOUSE

738
intermediate scale, including the shared social and economic environments in which people live, the strategic
political context, and campaign effects. For instance, parties vary in the intensity in which they mobilize voters at a
number of spatial levels ranging from the constituency to
the intermediate spatial scale analyzed here (Cutts 2006).
To date, little or no scholarly work has examined the
act of visiting the polling station, whether people from
the same household vote at the same time, or how this
collective act influences levels of participation. Similarly
the effects of other spatial contexts on voter participation such as the workplace remain underresearched by
political scientists. Yet while this analysis cannot pinpoint
the causal mechanisms involved, these findings provide
very strong evidence that, of all the local contexts electors
move in, it is the household which is the most salient for
voter participation.

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