The older generation are more likely to vote Conservative, AND they are better at turning up to vote! If the younger generations want their voices heard voting must become a priority, alongside political action!

As a member of this younger generation myself, and as someone who takes part in political action such as protests, I know how empowering and important this can be in raising awareness and getting the government’s attention. But what I am hoping to get across to you in this blog is that there is something as important as this, which we are statistically worse at compared to those older than us…VOTING.

There is a large disparity currently in voting trends when the data is broken down by age. Although the younger generation is likely to go along to protests and post ‘social media activism’ the younger generation is less likely to vote than the older generation, the government then hears the voices of the latter and makes changes which they want, so where is our voice in this government?

As seen in Figure 1, not only in the 2019 general election but, in general from 2015 to then, people aged 18-24 are much less likely to turn up to vote than those in the older range from 55 onwards. Turnout to the 2019 election for 18–24-year-olds was only at roughly 54%, with turnout of the eldest group at roughly 82%. The large gap in this voting turnout clearly shows why young people’s voices are going unheard in politics, WE ARE NOT TURNING UP TO VOTE.

Don’t get me wrong though, we know how to be politically engaged! It is clear that ‘young people are interested in political matters, and do take part in differing forms of political action’ (Henn and Weinstein, 2006: 3) but according to research conducted by Norris in 2003 we ‘are more likely to engage in ‘cause-oriented’ styles of politics’ (Henn and Weinstein, 2006: 3).

This means that young people are more likely to take part in protests, boycotts and other forms of action than in voting. Personally, I do like to take part in this ‘cause-oriented’ politics and believe this is incredibly important, but I turn up to vote too! Just take a look at what we can do in regard to climate change protests. In 2019, ‘an estimated 1.6 million kids in 125 countries hit the streets during a protest in mid-March.’ (Marris, 2019) 1.6 MILLION. And many of these protests took place in the UK. Clearly the younger generation is passionate about learning about political issues and eager to make changes! However, due to the lack of us turning up to vote, as highlighted in Figure 1, our voices are not always being validated by the government.

When young people are turning up to vote, we seem to vote very differently to the older generation, as the older generation are currently voting for a Conservative Government.  Perhaps if young people turned up to vote then there could be an end to the majority of us feeling let down by our government. As seen in figure 2, 56% of 18–24-year-olds are likely to vote Labour with a further 21% voting LibDem, SNP or Green. Whereas 67% of 70+ year olds and 57% of 60–69-year-olds are likely to vote Conservative, with those aged 40-59 also very likely to vote for a Conservative Government.

Why a conservative government doesn’t represent or help the younger generation?

Not only are they unrepresentative of the general public with ‘the majority of Rishi Sunak’s new Cabinet’ being ‘privately educated, with 65% of his top-tier team having gone to an independent school’ (ITVnews, 2022), the Conservative Government has been constantly criticised for not listening to young people’s concerns about issues that directly affect them such as climate change, housing or student loans. I believe that, the Government being unrepresentative of our generation and not listening to our demands is largely to do with the fact in the UK we don’t live in a country that values meritocracy. Meritocracy values hard work and effort and judges individuals equally depending on their abilities and the effort they put in to something, so if we were to live in a meritocratic society then we would be able to gain things like jobs, houses, grades etc through just how much work we put in. The reality is very different, I believe that you are much more likely to get ahead in education, in your work life and so much more if you come from an advantaged background. In my opinion, this is why the same types of people end up in power and our government is full of ‘privately educated’ and most likely, wealthy upper-class men.

SO, what can we do?

Our current government has constantly ignored the issues that the younger generation are concerned about. ‘The five pledges outlined by Sunak’ (Emerson, 2023) when laying out his plans for the country missed ‘the biggest threat facing younger and future generations – environmental crises and climate breakdown.’ (Emerson, 2023). Clearly the current Government doesn’t care much about the same issues we do.

In order to fight today for a better tomorrow, young people not only need to lobby for change in form of protests and other forms of political action but turn up to vote, so our voices are taken seriously and we may even tip the vote in order to change up the Government.  A vicious circle has been created whereby young people don’t turn up to vote, their voices are not heard, they become discouraged by the current Government and then…don’t turn up to vote. THIS CIRCLE MUST BE BROKEN AND YOUR VOICES WILL BE HEARD.

 

 

Bibliography:

Emerson, L / IntergenerationalFoundation (2023) Young let down by Starmer and Sunak Available at: (Accessed 21^st February 2023) https://www.if.org.uk/2023/01/05/young-let-down-by-starmer-and-sunak/

Henn, M and Weinstein, M (2006) Young People and Political (In)Activism: Why Don’t Young People Vote? Policy & Politics. 34(3) pp517-534. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/030557306777695316

ItvNews (2022) Majority of Rishi Sunak’s new cabinet went to private school. Available at: https://www.itv.com/news/2022-10-26/majority-of-rishi-sunaks-new-cabinet-went-to-private-school (Accessed: 17^th February 2023)

Marris, E / Nature (2019) Why young climate activists have captured the world’s attention. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02696-0 (Accessed: 22^nd February 2023)

McDonnell, A and Curtis, C / YouGov (2019) How Britain voted in the 2019 general election. Available at: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/12/17/how-britain-voted-2019-general-election  (Accessed: 17^th February 2023)

TheBritishElectionStudy (2021) Age and voting behaviour at the 2019 General Election. Available at: https://www.britishelectionstudy.com/bes-findings/age-and-voting-behaviour-at-the-2019-general-election/#.Y_UG_OzP2Rt (Accessed: 20^th  February 2023)