Thread by @aisling_bn

Scapegoating #Brexit

The blaming the elderly thing is a bit off or at the least, is over-simplistic. Three generations are crammed into “65+”; namely #Boomers (54-71 in 2016), #SilentGen (71-91) and GG (92-106) At this point we all know that 65+ voted to Leave 64:36. 1/

Boomers made up 6 years worth of the 65+ in 2016. Not much, right? Well, in 2016 “65+” made up 18% of the pop and those bt 65-71 work out at about 7.4% of it. SG & GG make up another 10.7%, heavily weighted to the younger end (Pop >85 in 2016 was 2.6%). 2/

So *of that voting cohort*, those six years of Boomers make up ~41% of “65+”. Following cohort as given in breakdowns is 50-64yr olds. Bar ~4 years, that is entirely Boomer gen, and voted to Leave 60:40. 3/

Takeaways:
A. It’s unreasonable to expect meaningful data on voting intentions by age when you cram multiple generations with different life experiences together and call ‘em “the old people”. 4/

B. The heaviest Leave vote was quite probably the Boomer Generation. It’s circumstantial thanks to lack of diligent recording/reporting but there sure are patterns. 5/

C. Core point. If you’ve gleefully commented on the older folk dying off since 2016, please bear in mind that it’s a cruel & shitty thing to say and also it hasn’t been the Boomers, unless there’s been a sudden annihilation of 67-73 year olds that I missed. 6/

Caveat: It's not hugely helpful to blame the Boomer gen en masse either, of course. Awful lot of people who can't flamin' help what year they were born want no truck with this at all. 7/

I remember seeing a graph soon after the ref showing a better breakdown by age, indicating that the older gens tended to vote remain. Annoyingly, I can’t find it since, so if anyone remembers this or where it was from… 8/

Anecdotely, older people (aka 80s-90s) and particularly WW2 veterans were pretty vocally against Brexit, bar Veterans for Britain who… are an interesting bunch. opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/a… 9/

Sources: Statista.com for pop data

Averaged the +/- years for start and end of gens. The immediate post-War boom was in 1946-1948 which is Boomer however you slice it.

18%, 2.4% = ons.gov.uk “Overview of the UK population” (Jul17)
10/

By the way, demographic change is important. But it's mostly the younger cohort aging into the system, not those aging out. Higher youth turnout would not have made a difference (and it was higher than most people think!), but that's a subject for another thread. 11/

I don't tend to post threads, so I'm sure I'll regret it. Looking into it was inspired by a depressed older tweeter frustrated of getting scatter-shot blame for something they personally deeply disapproved of! /end