Does education reduce the tendency to give the ‘No-opinion’ response in surveys? Findings from Turkey

When microdata on political participation are unavailable, an individual’s willingness to answer survey questions on public issues may be used to measure her political participation. In this context, I examine the causal relationship between education and the tendency to give ‘No-opinion’ responses in a Turkish survey. Using the 1997 education reform in Turkey that extended the length of compulsory education, I apply the two-stage least squares method in a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. The findings of the analyses based on the Life Satisfaction Survey for the 2009–2021 period suggest that the increase in middle school graduation due to the 1997 reform extending compulsory education reduced the probability of women giving a ‘No-opinion’ response, thus increasing their political participation. However, the effect of the reform-induced increase in education is found to be null for men. Compared to men, women exposed to the reform are more likely to be talented and attain higher levels of education, which may lead to gender disparities in the estimated impact of education.