Of Voting with the Feet and Voting in the Booth: Quality of Life and Electoral Participation in German Rural Areas

This paper examines how quality of life (QoL) affects voter turnout in German federal elections, with a focus on rural areas. While previous research has highlighted rural-urban divides in electoral behaviour, the role of objective living conditions remains underexplored. We develop a migration-based QoL index that combines indicators of economic performance, social and technical infrastructure, cultural amenities, and environmental quality. Drawing on panel data at the county level we analyse how both absolute and relative QoL relate to participation patterns across eastern and western Germany. The findings show that higher local QoL is significantly associated with higher turnout in rural eastern Germany, offsetting negative baseline effects in structurally disadvantaged regions. In contrast, relative deprivation substantially reduces participation in rural areas. The effects are more pronounced in eastern than in western rural regions, indicating persistent spatial inequalities. Notably, retrospective improvements in QoL do not translate into higher turnout, underlining the political relevance of relative rather than absolute gains. These results suggest that place-based policies improving local living conditions may help create territorial contexts supportive of democratic participation, but only when regional disparities are simultaneously addressed in terms of the economic viability of the provision of public goods.