Investigating the different rates of voting among UK social classes
Having previously looked at the gap in voter turnout between age groups, I am turning my attention to the gap in voter turnout between socioeconomic classes. I will lay out the recent data, highlight the issues with quantifying class, and explain why the data points to a social problem we should understand and want to improve. I will investigate how the gap in voter turnout emerges and is propagated in education and beyond. And consider how we might look to equalise voter turnout.
How big is the Gap in voting between Classes?
Whilst nobody tracks the demographics of every voter in the UK, polling companies make useful estimates. Ipsos (2019) conducted a survey of 27,951 UK adults after the elections; they found a significant difference in the voter turnout rates between socioeconomic classes and have done so repeatedly in elections.
Figure 1. Ipsos (2019)
For clarity, below is a Key of what these social grades mean.
Figure 2. (Ipsos 2009)
Figure one shows consistently that those in higher social grades have been more likely to vote than those in lower social grades. In the 2019 general election, 68% of eligible voters in Grades A&B voted, compared to 53% in Grades D&E. This difference in voter turnout was seen across all age groups, genders and regions in the UK (Ipsos 2019)
What’s the obvious problem with this Data?
Ipsos (2019), in an attempt to quantifiably measure class, is using a social grading system that sorts people by their profession. However, there is clearly more to class than profession; one might consider wealth, culture, and education as being important (Savage et al., 2013). Therefore, a crude grouping of people by professions groups people with radically different experiences together. Furthermore, even the groupings of professions put wildly different professions in the same group. However, other measures of class might be similarly difficult to draw lines, as people of different classes might have the same wealth. Despite rather clunky grouping, the data does appear to point to a significant social trend where groups from more traditionally working-class professions are less likely to vote than others.
Why’s it significant?
Low voter turnout within groups is significant because it reduces the legitimacy of elected officials, and vitally, it reduces the political capital in making things better for a group. If a group is less likely to vote, it has less power to make its representatives represent the group’s interests (Geys, 2006). This is particularly significant for the working class, as the last 30 years have seen a drop in their proportion of ownership of wealth (The Equality Trust, n.d.), and lower-income households affected most by the rise in the cost of living (Karjalainen & Levell, 2021)
Why are people of a higher socioeconomic class more likely to vote?
There’s relatively little research on the topic, but Brady, Schlozman, & Verba (2015) argue that Understanding politics and wanting to participate by voting is a cultural skill that wealthier families are more likely to teach to their children than poorer families. The argument is well supported by evidence in the US and seems entirely plausible in a UK setting. Internationally, it has been found that the intention to vote is correlated to parents’ education, even in early adolescence (Kim & Lim, 2019). Indeed, in a UK setting, Hoskins, Janmaat, & Meli (2017) argue similarly that skills taught at home in wealthier families, for instance, the use of elaborated language codes, better allow middle-class children to access political education in schools, for instance, class debates.
What can be done about it?
Unfair home lives are somewhat unavoidable, but luckily, the UK has relatively strong institutions that can intervene to teach children the things that society deems to be important. Hoskins, Janmaat, & Meli (2017) used longitudinal data from British schools and found that open classroom practice and political activities did not reduce the inequality in voting intention; however, receiving citizenship education did. Citizenship education accessed each child equally as it was compulsory and was particularly effective in raising the political participation of disadvantaged adolescents. Hoskins, Janmaat, & Meli (2017) argue for extending citizenship education, making it compulsory for up to 18 years and targeting vocational training, which attracts a greater proportion of economically disadvantaged youths.
Citizenship education is compulsory for those between 11 and 16 years old, so is the problem solved?
Unfortunately no. The existing provision of citizenship education has been described as a “peripheral feature” (Weinberg,2020, P.3) within UK schools, often given insufficient time and taught by non-expert and untrained teachers who feel ill-prepared to teach it (Weinberg, 2021). Furthermore, Citizenship education is generally better provided in fee-paying schools (Weinberg, 2021), which contributes to the inequality in voter turnout between socioeconomic classes.
Vitally proposing citizenship education as a solution to inequality of political participation appears to be a relatively effective sticking measure but can be criticised as just being a sticking plaster measure. It does nothing to help the economically disadvantaged adults who are currently less likely to vote and doesn’t address high rates of poverty in the UK and low degree of social mobility, which keeps people in poverty (Social Mobility Commission 2021). I think citizenship Education is a good thing, and it does little to help with the problem of economically disadvantaged people voting less and being underrepresented in government. However, it seems that the area is under-researched, and the better solutions will focus not just on schools but on reaching adults and improving the underlying problems of inequality and poor social mobility in the UK.
In conclusion
The data shows a strong and persistent trend where workers in a higher grade of employment are more likely to vote than those in lower grades. I have explored the difficulties in drawing boundaries when discussing socioeconomic classes, but nevertheless, I think the data shows a meaningful and significant trend. This inequality in political participation is significant because it reduces the government’s incentive to represent economically disadvantaged people’s best interests and respond to their concerns. Voting behaviour appears to be taught at home, and inequalities in voting intention appear in early adolescence. An effective way for the state to intervene to reduce this inequality is through citizenship education in schools. Currently, citizenship education is patchy, and teachers are ill-prepared to teach it. Finally, citizenship education, whilst a good measure, is incomplete as it does little to help economically disadvantaged adults and does little to tackle wider inequality in society. Further research is needed to discover effective measures to reduce voting inequality, among other inequalities.
Reference list
Brady, H. E., Schlozman, K. L., & Verba, S. (2015). Political Mobility and Political Reproduction from Generation to Generation. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 657(1), 149-173. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716214550587
Geys, B. (2006). ‘Rational’theories of voter turnout: a review. Political Studies Review, 4(1), 16-35.
Hoskins, B., Janmaat, J. G., & Melis, G. (2017). Tackling inequalities in political socialisation: A systematic analysis of access to and mitigation effects of learning citizenship at school. Social science research, 68, 88-101.
Ipsos (2009) Social Grade A Classification Tool. Available at https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/publication/6800-03/MediaCT_thoughtpiece_Social_Grade_July09_V3_WEB.pdf (accessed 18.03.2024)
Ipsos (2019) How Britain voted in the 2019 election. Available at: https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election (accessed 18.03.2024)
Karjalainen, H. & Levell, P., (2021) The cost of living crisis – who is hit by recent price increases?. IFS. Available at. https://ifs.org.uk/articles/cost-living-crisis-who-hit-recent-price-increases (accessed 19.03.2024)
Kim, H., & Lim, E. (2019). A cross-national study of the influence of parental education on intention to vote in early adolescence: The roles of adolescents’ educational expectations and political socialization at home. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 24(1), 85-101.
Savage, M., Devine, F., Cunningham, N., Taylor, M., Li, Y., Hjellbrekke, J., Le Roux, B., Friedman, S. and Miles, A., (2013). A new model of social class? Findings from the BBC’s Great British Class Survey experiment. Sociology, 47(2), pp.219-250.
Social mobility commission (2021) State of the nation 2021: Social mobility and the pandemic. GOV.UK available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/60f5b09fd3bf7f5683aae13b/State_of_the_nation_2021_-_Social_mobility_and_the_pandemic.pdf (accessed 20.03.2024)
The Equality trust (n.d) The Scale of Economic Inequality in the UK. Available at: https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk (accessed 19.03.2024)
Weinberg, J. (2020). Politics in schools: ‘what exists’ and ‘what works’? Project Report for the UK Democracy Fund (Ref. 190903). Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. London: United Kingdom.
Weinberg, J. (2021). The Missing Link: an updated evaluation of the provision, practice and politics of democratic education in english secondary schools. Project Report for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Political Literacy. London: United Kingdom.