Cohort Voting - 1974-2017

[afleitch]

I decided to use the publicly available Ipsos/MORI 'How Britain Voted' to look at how different voters born in different years have changed their voting behaviour as they have aged. I made cohorts in 5 year intervals (which dovetails nicely with most elections anyway) such as 1940-1944, 1945-1949 etc. Now I'm still playing about with it, and I'll upload graphs soon, but I first looked at the Tory lead over Labour to see how these cohorts performed in comparison to the national Tory vote at any given election and to show how re-aligning 2017 actually was. And how the Tories are in deep trouble with the entire working age population of the country...

For those born in 1940-1944, by 1979, they are voting higher than the Tory average at each election; 7 points higher from 2001-2010, 9 points higher in 2015 and 17 points higher in 2017.

For those born in 1945-1949, it's not until 1987, in their early 40's that they vote higher than the average, but only an average of 2 points from 1987-2010, then same as those 5 years before, 17 points by 2017.

Those born between 1950-1954 vote for the first time in 1974, when they are 13 points lower than the total Tory vote. That deficit continues right through to 2010. By 2017, it's 13 points higher

1955-1959 vote for the first time in 1979. Their 'deficit' is an average of -3 until 2017, when it shoots up to plus 7. They are actually the most stable voters, with the deficit being between -4 and -1 until 2015. However that actually demonstrates that they are the most 'elastic'; rising and falling in sync with the Tory vote throughout their voting history.

1960-1964 vote in 1983. They are the first cohort who are less likely to vote Tory as they age; a -2 deficit in 1983 to -5 in 2005. In part this is due to their dalliances with the Lib Dems. But again by 2017, they are +4 Tory.

1965-1969 vote in 1987 and deficit averages -5 until 2010; they are still -1 in 2017. This is the first generation where the Tories haven't made up a deficit.

1970-1974 vote in 1992. They average -5 right through to 2017.

Now it get's more brutal.

1975-1979 voters first vote in 1997. The Tory deficit gets worse until 2010 when it recovers a little, but by 2017, it's -11. They are the first cohort where the Tories are further behind than when this cohort voted for the first time.

1980-1984 voters (my own cohort) are the first wave of millennials. We first vote in 2001 and are the most Tory friendly since those born in 1960-1964. We actually remain the most Tory friendly right through to 2010; -2, the same as those born from 1955-1959. Then we slam into reverse to -6 in 2015 and -13 in 2017 joining those older and younger.

1985-1989 voters vote in 2005 and are that year, 1 point more Tory friendly than the cohort before, but fall steeper back and remain between -5 and -6 until 2017, when they collapse to -17

1990-1994 voters vote in 2010 and it goes from bad to worse for the Tories; -7 to -10 to -17

1994-1999 voters start to vote in 2015 and 2017 and again it's -9 and -17.

I'll do more with this, particularly with individual party votes and hopefully fire some graphs in.

[afleitch]

Update.

It got worse.

Voters born from 1975 to 1982 course corrected by only 1 point from -11 to -10. There's a small overlap for 1983 and 1984 going from -17 to -10 due to the split in ages by Mori.

Voters born from 1985 to 1994 have went from -17 to -18 and voters from 1995 (including new voters) from -17 to a massive -26.

A voter born in 1985 has went from -2 in 2010 to -5 in 2015 to -17 and -18 despite the total Tory share increasing each election.

[afleitch]

Bump

[iain]

[clyde1998]

Dec 31, 2022 21:43:31 GMT iain said:

*Tweet*

There are multiple reasons this could be the case beyond any 'culture war' issue:

• Younger people aren't gaining income/wealth as they age in the same way as previous generations. Without looking at any data, I think younger people are staying poorer for longer, making them more likely to support redistributive policies (causing them to vote for left-leaning parties); it's possible this effect is less in non-English speaking western countries.
• Also, as someone pointed out in response to that tweet, western English speaking countries are much more likely to have FPTP systems than non-English speaking countries - so there's more of binary effect at play.
• Looking at the English-speaking graph, there's been a sudden shift to the right among older voters in the past decade when compared to non-English voters too. So it could be more of a case that older people in English speaking countries have moved more to the right than younger cohorts moving to the left.
• This graphs are showing support relative to the national average - as there are more older people in the population, the national average to be skewed more to older people's opinions that in the past (IIRC, over half of voters at the last general election were over the age of 55). Perhaps this effect is greater in English-speaking countries.

[David Ashforth]