# Impact of aging on voting behavior. **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 17, 2016, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impact-of-aging-on-voting-behavior/752478 "2016-04-17T17:42:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impact-of-aging-on-voting-behavior/752478/1 "2016-04-17T17:42:39Z")
Younger generations tend to be more liberal than older ones. On the Democratic side this election has a cohort of younger (and predominantly White) who are strongly supporting a message of economic progressiveness. Overall how much more liberal are younger voters than older voters? Do voters become more economically conservative as they age? Do voters vote more according to their views on the economic or the social axes? [Pew data](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/09/the-politics-of-american-generations-how-age-affects-attitudes-and-voting-behavior/) on the first question. (Some quotes from one link in.) The younger cohort has fewer “Steadfast Conservatives” and fewer “Business Conservatives” but more of the “Young Outsiders — GOP leaners who favor limited government but are socially liberal” and the most “Bystanders — not registered to vote, don’t follow politics and generally the least politically engaged.” There are _marginally_ more Solid Liberals, more “Next Generation Left, who tilt more to the Democrats but are wary of social-welfare programs.” Fewer “Faith and Family Left” who “lean Democratic, based on their confidence in government and support for federal programs to address the nation’s problem” but are religious and “uncomfortable with the pace of societal change, including the acceptance of homosexuality and non-traditional family structures.” Perhaps most interestingly, relatively _fewer_ “Hard Pressed Skeptics”, those “battered by the struggling economy, and their difficult financial circumstances have left them resentful of both government and business.” Bottom line, “the relationship is considerably more complex than young=liberal and old=conservative.” More who are divergent on different axes if anything. And _few_ among the younger voters who are the resentful because of being battered by the economy … which one would think would be the group most focused on a revolution of economic structures. To the second question, [some data from the U.K.](http://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-do-we-become-more-conservative-with-age-47910) - > [@](#): > > One way to go about it is to track the same people over time, observe how their political preferences change and then compare those changes to the results of different elections. > > This is the approach I took in our 2014 study. By taking the average of seven different groups of several thousand people each over time – covering most periods between general elections since the 1960s – we found that the maximum possible ageing effect averages out at a 0.38% increase in Conservative voters per year. The minimum possible ageing effect was only somewhat lower, at 0.32% per year. > > This may not sound like a massive effect, but over the course of a lifetime these increments do add up. Even if only the minimum estimate is correct, the difference between 20 and 80-year-olds is nearly 20 percentage points. This means that our estimate of ageing effects precisely explains the 19-point difference between the percentage of 20 and 80-year-olds who voted Conservative in the 1997 election. The third? No idea. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2016, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impact-of-aging-on-voting-behavior/752478/2 "2016-04-18T10:24:14Z")
Some who were romantics in '96 grew into stodgy businessmen, pursy-lipped and suspicious, some remained radical fools until the day they died. It was natural for the fat safe timid elderly bourgeois to vote for the comforting surety of the Prince-President — just as they would flock to Clinton now ( although she’s more of a Thiers, always there and always despicable ); and it was just as natural that an ass like Hugo would move steadily leftwards until he would fall off a cliff. The plump sweetness of a bud in no way presages the blown flower. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2016, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impact-of-aging-on-voting-behavior/752478/3 "2016-04-18T10:38:12Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Younger generations tend to be more liberal than older ones. Don’t know if I’d agree with this. I was very right wing when I was in my 20s and thought liberalism was responsible for all of what plagued society. I think age has probably made me more rigid in the opinions that I have fully formed, meaning that once they are set, I probably won’t reverse myself. But I’m talking about attitudes more than opinions about specific laws or policies. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2016, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impact-of-aging-on-voting-behavior/752478/4 "2016-04-18T10:49:51Z")
So if indeed the same people vote more conservative over time as the cite in OP’s second question AND [birth rates drop over time](http://www.prb.org/images12/us-fertility-figure1.gif) so the ratio of youth to seniors drops AND [life expectancy increases](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db125.htm) so that the elderly live longer THEN doesn’t this portend a shift in favor of conservatives in the long term? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2016, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/impact-of-aging-on-voting-behavior/752478/5 "2016-04-18T11:53:37Z")
> [@Iggy](#): > > So if indeed the same people vote more conservative over time as the cite in OP’s second question AND > > [birth rates drop over time](http://www.prb.org/images12/us-fertility-figure1.gif) so the ratio of youth to seniors drops AND > > [life expectancy increases](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db125.htm) so that the elderly live longer THEN > > doesn’t this portend a shift in favor of conservatives in the long term? Maybe. But despite lower birth rates the Millennial generation is larger than even the Boomers. (Impact of immigration.) And while _individuals_ may indeed on average become marginally more Conservative (as defined in by the U.K. parties, which does not overlap exactly into American politics), there are also significant differences based on events that occur to generations and from other non-age demographic shifts and what occurs that impacts those specific demographics. So, for example, I could find [this](http://restud.oxfordjournals.org/content/81/2/787.short). > [@](#): > > We find that individuals who experienced a recession when young believe that success in life depends more on luck than effort, support more government redistribution, and tend to vote for left-wing parties. The effect of recessions on beliefs is long-lasting. The recession thus may have lasting impact on political preferences even if there is a gradual shift moderating that impact, just as my parent’s generation was impacted by the events of WW2.