Class Year

2023

Document Type

Student Research Paper

Date of Creation

Spring 2023

Department 1

Political Science

Abstract

The ever-changing nature of the population in different age cohorts creates a variance in issue priorities between and among younger and older generations. This relationship can be explained by the theory of postmaterialism, which insists that there is a rising attachment among young people to postmaterialist values and goals, such as self-expression, especially within the society of younger age cohorts. As younger generations have become more prevalent in demanding the United States government and other nations in the Global North to engage in lawmaking that nourishes their postmaterialist values and needs, I attempt to examine the relationship between one’s age and their degree of trust towards the government. This paper finds that an individual’s degree of trust in the U.S. government is likely to decrease inversely with their age, which is supported by regression tests. However, when examining the Global North and the Global South at a macroscopic level, the confidence in government increased when there was an increase in age, and the Global North had a higher degree of government confidence than the Global South counterpart.

Comments

Written for Jacober Scholars Program.

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