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The age divide in UK politics

A working paper authored by Dr Joe Chrisp and Professor Nick Pearce, prepared for the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust.


Report


The impact of age on voting behaviour and political outcomes has become an issue of increasing political and public interest, particularly in the UK. In this paper, the authors update a previous analysis of the age divide in British politics to examine the trends over recent general elections. They revisit their analysis by interacting turnout by age with other key variables, such as gender, education, ethnicity and housing tenure, before examining how support for the main political parties varies by age. They also respond to a tendency to explain away age differences as either simply about education or homeownership by interacting age, education and housing tenure to create eight sub-groups of voters.

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