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statistics on different age groups voting in 2017

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statistics on different age groups voting in 2017

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YouGov conducts one of Britain's biggest ever post-election surveys to chart how the nation's political character is shifting

Since last week's election result YouGov has interview over 50,000 British adults to gather more information on how Britain voted. This is part of one of the biggest surveys ever undertaken into British voting behaviour, and is the largest yet that asks people how they actually cast their ballots in the 2017 election.

The bigger sample size allows us to break the results down to a much more granular level and see how different groups and demographics voted on Thursday.

Age

In electoral terms, age seems to be the new dividing line in British politics. The starkest way to show this is to note that, amongst first time voters (those aged 18 and 19), Labour was forty seven percentage points ahead. Amongst those aged over 70, the Conservatives had a lead of fifty percentage points.

In fact, for every 10 years older a voter is, their chance of voting Tory increases by around nine points and the chance of them voting Labour decreases by nine points. The tipping point, that is the age at which a voter is more likely to have voted Conservative than Labour, is now 47 - up from 34 at the start of the campaign.

Despite an increase in in youth turnout, young people are still noticeably less likely to vote than older people. While 57% of 18 and 19 year-olds voted last week, for those aged 70+ the figure was 84%.

Class

As noted at the start of the campaign, the class divide in British politics seems to have closed and it is no longer a very good indicator of voting intention. Despite dramatic voter movements towards Labour over the past few weeks this theme has held reasonably consistent: Labour is now 4% behind amongst ABC1 voters and 2% behind amongst C2DE voters.

The picture is a bit more mixed if we split this out further, with Labour doing best amongst DE voters (semi-skilled and unskilled manual occupations, unemployed people and those in the lowest grade occupations) and the Tories doing best amongst C2 voters (skilled manual occupations).

Education

Alongside age, education has become one of the key electoral demographic dividing lines. We saw it was a huge factor in the EU referendum campaign and, after the last general election, we made sure we accounted for educational qualifications in our methodology. In last week's vote, while the Conservatives' support decreases the more educated a voter is, the opposite was true for Labour and the Lib Dems.

Amongst those with low educational qualifications (defined as GCSE or equivalent or below) the Conservatives beat Labour by 22%. However amongst those with high level educational qualifications (defined as degree-level or above) Labour led by 17 percentage points. Part of this relationship is down to age - the expansion of education means that, on average, the young have more qualifications than the old, although the Conservatives still have a "graduate problem" even after accounting for this.

Gender

There was only a small gender gap between men and women, with women being equally split between Labour and the Conservatives (43% to 43%), and men slightly more likely to have backed the Tories (45% to 39%).

Employment status

Given the importance of age and voting it is not surprising that there is also a link between people's employment status and who they cast their ballot for. The Conservatives are 39 points ahead amongst retirees and Labour are 45 points ahead amongst full-time students.

Labour is in fact ahead amongst those in work: 4 points ahead amongst those working part time and 6 points ahead amongst those working full time, illustrating how the Conservatives are increasingly relying on the grey retired vote.

Newspaper

Beyond standard demographics, our data also shows a wide variation in voting behaviours based on the newspapers people read. The most pro-Conservative newspapers are the broadsheet Telegraph (+67), but also the "blue-top" Express (+62) and Daily Mail (+57).

The most pro-Labour newspapers are the Guardian (+65), the now fully-online Independent (+51), and the Daily Mirror (+49). This is based on the newspaper that respondents say they read "most often".

Photo: PA
See the full results here

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How Britain voted at the 2017 general election | YouGov

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Since last week's election result YouGov has interview over 50,000 British adults to gather more information on how Britain voted. This is part of one of the biggest surveys ever undertaken into British voting behaviour, and is the largest yet that asks people how they actually cast their ballots in the 2017 election.

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research on why young people should vote

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research on why young people should vote

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It gives you the power to create change.

Voting gives you the power to decide how the UK is run. If you have a complaint about the way the country is being run, voting is a way simple you can make a change. You can choose a candidate to suit to your views and they can represent your views at a national and local level. It's not the only way to participate but it's the quickest and easiest way!

Get politicians working for young adults.

It is an unfortunate truth that politicians will sometimes look at voter turnout before making key policy decisions. If a certain demographic's turnout is high then politicians may be more likely to make policy that benefits that demographic in order to please them and subsequently win their votes or retain their support.

According to IPSOS Mori more than 71% of over 65s voted in 2010, compared to only 54% of 18-24 year olds ().

Voting is important even if you don't think your candidate will win.

Living in a safe seat constituency doesn't mean your vote won't make a difference. The constituency of Crewe & Nantwich was a safe seat for over 25 years until 2008. If everyone just 'gives up' change will never happen.

Supporting a candidate who might not necessarily win has a number of other financial implications. Firstly, Political Parties are awarded 'Short Money' (funding) depending on the number of overall votes they receive, more votes equals more funding for the party to keep fighting elections with.

Candidates are also required to get a certain number of votes in their constituency to keep their deposit (the money they put down to appear on the ballot paper) if a party loses a lot of deposits it can have a big impact on their funding. Funding is important for parties as without it they can find it difficult to support candidates standing in elections. So by voting for a candidate you're also helping them to keep fighting elections in future.

Furthermore, the electoral system will never change to benefit third parties if only voters for the main parties turn out to vote, if you want to see a change then you must show that there is demand for other parties to be represented.

Many movements have campaigned to give you the right to vote.

Many campaigners within movements, such as the women's suffrage movement, even gave their lives to win the right to vote. Some say it is disrespectful to them to waste your vote.

The UK has seen a number of campaigns to spread voting rights over its history, including groups campaigning for the right to vote for women and working class men. (Read More)

MPs represent your local area in parliament and solve issues for local people.

Voting enables you to help decide who represents your local area in parliament, it's their job to raise local issues and support you as much as they can. You can go to them and ask for advice on certain issues or ask them to promote an issue in parliament.

MPs are able to help with a range of topics ranging from immigration status and support for local infrastructure to complaints about utility companies. Sometimes their help can really change people's lives for the better.

By voting you can select the person you want to represent you and help them keep their job, or by voting for other candidates you can help remove a sitting MP who you think isn't doing a good job.

Looking for something more specific to local elections? Take a look at some more reasons here.

Voting is a way to show support for Electoral Reform.

The Electoral System we have will never change if you don't speak out. There has been many calls to change the First Past the Post electoral system to a more proportional one. If you would like to see this change it is important to prove that smaller parties have the support, this will give them mandate to call for reform.

You can leave your ballot blank, or spoil it, if you do not agree with any of the political parties.

Of course, if you don't feel aligned to any of the political parties then you can spoil your ballot.

Staying at home just makes you another statistic, it is presumed you are just uninterested, by actively going to the polling station and not selecting any candidate before submitting to the ballot box, you become a voice for the disengaged.

Blank Votes and Spoiled Ballots are read out at the count, along with the results and are also included in subsequent reports. Your apathy towards the political parties will be heard not just forgotten.

If suddenly there are huge numbers of blank/spoiled ballots at election time, the major political parties will start to think more about what they need to do to reconnect with these voters.
www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

"One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors"

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It gives you the power to create change. Voting gives you the power to decide how the UK is run. If you have a complaint about the way the country is being run, voting is a way simple you can make a change.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39965925

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This link gives information/support for why voting should be made compulsory

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This link gives information/support for why voting should be made compulsory

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https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/04/09/majority-support-compulsory-voting/

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i think this is a good picture as it shows what power a young person vote has.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/how-do-i-vote-in-the-2015-general-election-everything-you-need-to-know-10185331.html

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This is a nice image/quote from a young person on voting

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This is a nice image/quote from a young person on voting

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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/23-reasons-register-vote-3880929

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/08/first-time-voters-guide-voting