UK election 2015: can young voters make a difference, Uk opinion poll, UK Opinion Poll 2015, UK general election opinion poll,

UK election 2015: can young voters make a difference?

While political parties are not being this openly downbeat about it yet, young people are undoubtedly becoming an ever-declining force in UK electoral politics.

Why is this the case?

1. Young people are less likely to vote

Several columnists and ex-punks may have attacked Russell Brand for his refusal to encourage the UK youth to vote but the activist-comic was tapping into a widely held sentiment.

According to the British Election Study, the proportion of registered 18 to 24-year-olds turning out to cast their ballot has consistently been below every other age group since the 1970s.

The rate did go up by 13.6 percentage points between the 2005 and 2010 elections, when 51.2% of young people voted – but it was still way behind the 66% national turnout for all of the electorate.

Work by Eurobarometer has suggested that young British adults are among the least engaged with the political process when comparing their peers across Europe.

Even looking at turnout does not show the full extent of the issue. Young people do not only vote less, but research by the Electoral Commission suggests they are less likely to be on the electoral register than other age groups.

2. The UK has an ageing population

The animation below summarises another issue adding to the trend of low electoral participation among young people – the makeup of the British electorate is, albeit slowly, skewing towards older voters.

Over 65s are making up a bigger chunk of the electorate and they are more likely to vote. As a result they have a disproportionately large sway over the election outcome.

Over 65s are making up a bigger chunk of the electorate and they are more likely to vote. As a result they have a disproportionately large sway over the election outcome.

A cynic would say that this means that it’s much less pressing for political parties to formulate policies to benefit young people as it’s less likely to get them votes. At the end of the day, it’s the grey vote that decides elections

Although it’s not as cut and dry as this – as the Liberal Democrats are likely to painfully find out after their U-turn on tuition fees – offending young voters is much less of a risk for more conservative parties.

Current polls show that young people are much more likely to back Labour and the Greens than other age groups – no wonder then that Ed Miliband has put so much backing into the campaigns to get students registered and he is expected to announce a cut in tuition fees this week paid for by a reduction in tax relief on pensions.

But where can young people actually make a difference?

Nevertheless, there are still quite a few seats where attracting the votes of under 25s might be crucial to whoever wins.

While there is no age-breakdown of eligible voters by constituency, we do have it for the mid-year population estimates for 2013 from the ONS. This gives us a good picture of the age composition of the electorate for each seat despite including, for example, migrants who are ineligible to vote.

We found 35 seats in England and Wales where at least 20% of the voting age population was between 18 and 24. Just below half of these (17) were marginals in the 2010 election – by that we mean the gap between the winning and second place party was 10 percentage points or less.

Foremost among these is the Labour-held (and student heavy) seat of Sheffield Central where over a third (38%) of the voting-age population is under 25. The MP for the seat, Paul Blomfield, won against the Lib Dems in 2010 by just 0.4 percentage points – although the race this time round is unlikely to be as close.

Other key seats to watch out for in May include Nottingham South, Birmingham Selly Oak and the Conservative-held Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport. We’ve listed all of the seats below.

Despite all this doom and gloom then, young people can have a tangible impact on the election – they just need to make sure they register to vote, and then get to the polling station on time. Most importantly young people need to feel engaged by the political process, and feel that politics matters to their lives – when this is the case, like in last year’s Scottish independence referendum, young people do turn out.

• Prev
• Next