[Voting behavior of the elderly: motivation and background]

On the occasion of the Dutch election for the Second Chamber of Parliament held on September 6, 1989 the Central Bureau of Statistics conducted a National Voters Survey (NKO). Voting behaviour and information about the backgrounds of this behaviour were collected among 1506 voters. A formerly developed explanatory model of party choice of the electorate also appears to apply to the 382 elderly voters (55 years and older) in the sample. The results show that party choice of elderly is mainly determined by the characteristics income, social class, religion, social values (social criticism) and opinions about politicians. The elderly differ from the younger voters (18-54 years old) on several points. For the elderly, the characteristics sex, education and social class play a more important role, whereas certain values (family values and postmaterialism) are more relevant for the 18-54 year-old group. In addition it turned out that as far as the explanation of party choice is concerned, the elderly are not a homogeneous group. Voters aged 75-plus in particular can be distinguished from the 55-64 and 65-74 year-old groups.