The Political Roots of Ageism in Greying Democracies: Evidence from Italy, South Korea, and the United States. (With Alonso Roman Amarales and Luca Bellodi).
Ageing populations are reshaping the political landscape in many democracies, raising concerns about intergenerational inequalities in power and representation. While ageism is a well-documented form of prejudice, its political roots remain underexplored. This paper examines whether perceptions of intergenerational political imbalance contribute to negative attitudes toward older people. Using original survey data from Italy, South Korea, and the United States, we study how both general concerns about older generations dominating political life and more personal feelings of age-based exclusion are associated with four distinct measures of ageism, including an Implicit Association Test (IAT). The results reveal strong and consistent links between perceived political grievances and explicit expressions of ageism, particularly among those who feel personally unrepresented due to their age. These patterns hold across diverse national contexts and remain robust when controlling for psychological and demographic factors such as anxiety about ageing, intergenerational contact, ethnocentrism, and ideology. In contrast, implicit ageism appears largely unaffected by political perceptions. Our findings suggest that age-based prejudice is not merely a cultural or psychological artifact, but can also be fueled by perceived injustices in democratic representation.