explaining voter behaviour: gender, age & ethnicity

what do politicians mean by gender?

• traditionally:

  • gender views in elections n politics summed up by ‘women’ and ‘how to attract female voters’ = outdated attitudes

• however, recent evidence suggest parties have made particular overtures to females:

  • 2019: clear policies tackling gender inequality inc commitments tackling women violence issues

  • 2017: labour committed to ‘gender impact assessment’ on all policies n legislaton

  • 2015: labour had a ‘woman to woman’ pink minibus, visited 75 constituencies

  • 2014: david cam said britain would ‘lead the change in women’s equality’

  • 2014: jo swinson launched lib dem campaign for equal pay and increased childcare provision

  • 1997: tony blair introduced all-women shortlists to increase the no of women in parliament

is there a women’s vote?

• working age women do seem to be a definite target of policies, but a women’s vote is debatable

• traditionally, women were seen to favour the tories

  • labour only won larger share of female vote under blair

  • women app responsible for heath’s suprise victory in 1970, promised ‘economic stability n protection for weekly shop price’

conclusions on gender:

• 2017: equal on females, tories had 6% lead w/ male vote, won them election

• 2019: labour vote decreased generally, more women voted for labour, suggests gender is not defining factor in outcome

• 64% of 18-24 yo n 54% of 25-34 yo women voted labour, 36-54 yo more likely to vote tory

  • conclusion: any gap on gender more closely associated w/ age

age-based assumptions:

• younger voters lean left

• younger voters: more socially liberal, older voters more socially conservative

• the older the voter, the more likely they are to vote

• elderly population growing as percentage of total population

age conclusions:

• parties know the significance of age to voting and tailor policies accordingly

  • substantial increase in uni fees hit young, who don’t vote whilst protecting/increasing pensions please the elderly who do vote

  • pensions reforms, the nhs, law n order, and limited social reform concern the elderly ∴ parties focus on these

  • youth unemployment, uni fees n reform of drug laws are given less priority as the demographic these appeal to don’t vote

does ethnicity matter?

• ethnicity seems to point to a clear partisan divide in the uk - white voters lean more to the right and minority ethnic voters leaning more to left

• complicated factor

• explanations for lean to Labour, potensh:

  • legacy of anti-minority expressed by enoch powell (1968), norman tebbit (1990)

  • concentration of many minority ethnic groups into industrial urban centres, where they initially took on unskilled working-class jobs, putting them into c2 social class

history matters:

• mass immigration » new wave of workers to uk

• tensions within labour party, but tories played on idea of ‘white right’ to win elections

• + tory association w/ rural, higher-class electorate = labour holding more support with ethnic voters

• however, 87.1% of uk population identifies as white british, minority groups less likely to vote