The Lifelong Consequences of Protesting : A Longitudinal Analysis of the Gendered and Intergenerational Effects of Protest Participation on Individuals’ Life-Course Patterns

Sammanfattning: Protesting is a common tactic used by social movements and the outcomes are widely researched in social movement studies. This thesis examines the biographical consequences of protest participation on individuals’ life-course patterns from a gendered and intergenerational perspective. The study employs regression analysis and a longitudinal dataset collected from the Swedish Level of Living Survey, which includes six panel waves in total stretching from 1968 to 2010. It consists of a nationally representative sample of the Swedish population between the ages of 15–75, in which the last two panel waves include the respondents’ children in the ages of 10–18. The results show that protest participants are likely to become more educated than non- participants and that they continue to remain active in political and union activities. Further, there is evidence of gender-based differences between protesters as women do not continue to uphold the same level of involvement in political organisations in comparison to men. No support is given to the expectation that protesting will have intergenerational effects. The results show that participating in protests may have long-lasting consequences for individuals and that there seems to be gender-based differences between protesters, which might have implications for individuals’ further involvement in political activities.