YOUTHQUAKEEEEEEEEE

 

 

People often talk about the disengagement that the youth have towards politics. Many say how “the youth don’t care” “ they don’t vote ” and they insist that the young people are demonstrating their lack of respect for the traditions and for older people (Quintelier 2007). But I am here to tell you that this is not true anymore. It may have been the case before but not now and this very blog has come about to inform you that there has been a CHANGE A SHIFT A TURNAROUND in young people and their engagement in politics. 

The “YOUTHQUAKE” was a term used to describe the flooding of young people involved in 2017 elections which ended up being a key component in Corbyn’s 10 point advance in Labour’s. In recent times I believe that young people have been getting more involved in politics. The youth are now taking more of an interest in it, and I believe that one of the reasons being is because they see that what they “SAY”and “VOTE” has an “IMPACT” on their future. But the growing youth in politics does not disregard the fact that there is still an increase in the grey voters. 

 

Who are the grey voters and why do they matter? 

 

In the UK advanced industrial democracies are beginning to age and this means that the group of older people voting is increasing too, causing them to have a fundamental impact on electoral results. Usually when it comes to voting older age groups are most likely to vote than younger age groups and I think that this could be down to many reasons for example, the things that they vote for and older people tend to be more generally interested in politics according to (Quintelle,2007 ) young people may have fewer reasons to participate in politics due to them not having a house, stable residency, and not having children but as I said before this is not the case now. But I can say that the population of the UK is beginning to age and this is a result of increased life expectancies and differential birth rates among the generations. This increase has come from the titled baby boomers generation which is a generation of people born after the war. People have even said that the increase in the grey vote has had its own consequences for the ability of young people even making themselves heard in the field of politics (Berry 2012). The rise and increase of grey voters is important and something to look out for as they are the ones who vote the most. 

 

In 2017 the UK really saw the impact of the grey voters as we saw an “ unprecedented demographic division in the electorate between old and young” (Chrisp and Pearce 2019). This graph shows the turnout rates by age and we are able to see the 65+ stats just flying high. This shows us jus

t how many of them are voting, and though the votes of the young people are not as much there is a sense of hope as you can see towards the end the participation of young people is beginning to increase.

 

DID SOMEBODY SAY YOUTHQUAKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

 

Yes it is a youthquake. The young people are taking their control back, they are getting more involved in political campaigns and participating in different demonstrations, all this talk of the youth not caring and being lazy should be thrown out and stamped out. Most people base their assumptions on the voter turnouts but if they look the other way they will be able to see that’s not the case (Pometsey 2020). An article by GQ states that the figures of youth engagement in politics and reality are at odds with each other as the young people are  “historically less likely to get down to the voting booth than older generations” but if we see online and in the physical “ they’re more in tune with the political landscape than ever before” (Lowe 2020). In other words it’s not that they are not engaged with politics, they are just engaged and show their interest in politics in different ways that have not been seen before.

 

 And the last 3 years has been a testament of this I believe that Covid-19 has had such an impact on young people and their involvement with politics, according to (Lowe 2020) more than half of university students have become more politicised as a result of the pandemic, 63% of the 4,193 students did not believe that the government had their best interest at heart so they decided to make their voices known. 

This image is from the University of Manchester students living in Owens Park student accommodation went on a rent strike last month. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

 

The black lives matter campaign was also another way for the world to witnesses the rise of young people in politics, young people were some of the main people involved in it and leading and I believe that it has been an effective way for young people to be more involved 

 

This is a photo taken from an article from the guardian showing young people at the forefront of one of the many black lives matter movements, this just shows that young people do have an interest in change and that they too have a voice and they need to be heard. 

So what does social media have to do with it? 

 

Well I guess you can say that social media is the new polling station for young people. They are now using it to redefine political engagement as they are finding many different ways for them to show their preferences and to engage online (Keating and Melis 2017). Social media is a powerful tool for young people to be able to share their views and experiences which enables more young people to do the same and essentially make them all “Politically engaged” .

 

 

This is a graph from the US showing the different age groups that use social media, and according to (Ganz 2020) social media may be one of the driving forces to youth getting more engaged in politics and voting early. 

 

2019 graph from Our World in Data. (Ganz 2020) 

 

 

References

1. Berry, C., 2012. How the growing grey vote could undermine British democracy. [online] openDemocracy. Available at: <https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/how-growing-grey-vote-could-undermine-british-democracy/> [Accessed 24 February 2022].
2. Chrisp, J. and Pearce, N., 2019. The rise of the grey vote. [online] IPR blog. Available at: <https://blogs.bath.ac.uk/iprblog/2019/05/21/the-rise-of-the-grey-vote/> [Accessed 24 February 2022].
3. Ganz, G., 2020. The Young and Restless, part 4: How young people use social media for political mobilization – DU Clarion. [online] Duclarion.com. Available at: <https://duclarion.com/2020/10/the-young-and-restless-part-4-how-young-people-use-social-media-for-political-mobilization/> [Accessed 24 February 2022].
4. Keating, A. and Melis, G., 2017. Social media and youth political engagement: Preaching to the converted or providing a new voice for youth?. [online] Sage Journals. Available at: <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1369148117718461> [Accessed 24 February 2022].
5. Lowe, Y., 2020. Covid-19 drives 50% of students in UK to become ‘more political’. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/dec/12/covid-19-drives-50-of-students-in-uk-to-become-more-political> [Accessed 24 February 2022].
6. Mohdin, A. and Campbell, L., 2020. ‘So many people care!’ The young Britons whose lives were changed by Black Lives Matter. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/13/how-black-lives-matter-has-inspired-a-generation-of-new-uk-activists> [Accessed 24 February 2022].
7. pometsey, O., 2020. Knife crime and mental health are young people’s biggest political concerns. We should be listening to them. [online] British GQ. Available at: <https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/politics/article/young-people-politics> [Accessed 24 February 2022].
8. quintelier, E., 2007. [online] Lirias.kuleuven.be. Available at: <https://lirias.kuleuven.be/retrieve/169238> [Accessed 24 February 2022].