Young voters have always been a staple of Labour support. At every election since October 1974, Labour’s share of the vote has been higher among 18-34-year-olds than among the electorate as a whole. Support has varied between younger men and younger women (under Tony Blair, Labour has fared better with young women than young men) but overall the party would perform substantially worse without their support.
But vote shares alone mean less than they might because of extremely low turnouts among this group. This means that there is more potentially to be gained from persuading young people who already support Labour to go to the polls than from winning over wavering supporters of other parties. In 2005, only 37 per cent of 18-24-year-olds and 49 per cent of 25-34-year-olds voted for any party; for the 18-24-year-olds that was even lower than in 2001, bucking a trend that saw at least a slight recovery among other age groups.
Although turnout has probably always been lowest among the young, the degree to which the gap has widened in the last few years is dramatic. In 1992, Mori estimated that 63 per cent of 18-24-year-olds voted, 15 points lower than the overall turnout. Expressed another way, the young were about four-fifths as likely as the average adult to get to the polls. In 2005, that ratio had fallen to three-fifths, and the gap widened to 24 percentage points.
The effect on Labour is that in 2005, roughly 2.1 million of Labour’s 9.6 million votes came from those under 35 – barely one in five. By contrast, in 1992, a third of Labour’s votes came from the same age group. So young people don’t matter as much as they used to – unless Labour can persuade them to vote. It has not been very successful at this in the last few elections.
There are several challenges. One is translating what latent support there is into voting behaviour, and the other is young people’s disillusionment with conventional party politics of all sorts. Welcome to the world of the IPOD – the generation between 18 and 34, who we at Ipsos Mori describe as Insecure, Pressurised, Over-taxed and Debt-ridden. Young people are faced with increasing levels of debt from higher education, much stronger labour market competition, lower growth in earnings and acute difficulties in getting on to the property ladder.
They have been labelled as apathetic and uninterested in politics, binge-drinking consumers with a short-term mindset. But the truth is more complex. Despite their debts, ‘IPODs’ show the hallmarks of a generation that has grown up during a time of economic plenty; they are non-ideological, laissez-faire, and tolerant of difference. They are very confident people, demanding a lot from employers and corporations.
But they feel disconnected from the public realm. They tend to vote in smaller numbers than other groups, express more cynicism about government and politics overall, and focus on the personal sphere rather than the political. Worryingly for politicians, they do not tend to connect the ups and downs of their daily lives with the macroeconomic sphere or with decisions made in local government or in the House of Commons. They tend not to look to party politics to provide a credible answer to society’s ills.
Given the hardening economic climate, some of the more relaxed attitudes of the ‘IPODs’ may already be shifting and changing; they are at risk of becoming even more disaffected. Although this generation is different from its elders in assumptions and attitudes, many of the principles of communicating with young people also hold true for successful communication with older groups. But younger people’s attitudes to technology and communications represent a sea change in our culture overall – the next generations of voters are likely to be more like younger people than like older generations. Learning how to communicate with younger people now will stand political parities in good stead for the future, unlocking a better relationship between government and the whole future electorate.
What needs to change? First, government needs to understand the potential of new communications technology to excite, surprise and delight. The young will get involved with communications that skilfully use new technology to simplify information and to entertain them; at best technology represents the chance to help people navigate complex information in an elegant, exciting, engaging way, and hence create greater empowerment and genuine choice.
Second, government must be competent. One element of young people’s vision of government is that it is businesslike and effective. They will respond to politicians who are professional and deliver success and, in particular, value for money.
Third, government must lead. Choice and personalisation can be a centrepiece of public service reform policy, but the government must take on a leadership role, like a consumer brand, in identifying people’s needs and shaping services to meet them. Fourth, localism can appeal to young people’s desire to express their active interest in political issues, and also to hold services effectively to account.
Leading politicians in all parties have already begun talking this language. The four themes are, in fact, the battleground of post-Blairite politics. Those politicians who are able to absorb these lessons will find that young people are ready and willing to support them.
Young voters: Myth and reality
Myth : 18-34s are ‘the young’ – a homogenous group.
Reality: There are many segments in this age group, all wanting different relationships with government and services.
Myth: Young adults are apathetic and uninterested in public life.
Reality: 18-34s are very busy, time-pressed, sophisticated consumers who mete out their attention carefully and expect a return on emotional investment immediately, whenever they engage with government. Learning styles have changed, meaning they value modern conventions of communication and will not pay attention to old-fashioned approaches.
Myth: Younger people live in extended adolescence and don’t feel empowered to create change in society.
Reality: They do not feel engaged with the political sphere, yet they are very confident and empowered in other areas of their lives, for instance in their careers and their relationships with corporations. They call for government to behave more like a corporation; giving them ‘management information’, communicating results clearly and transparently, making individuals accountable on the local level for delivery, and brokering a more imaginative relationship with the media to convey information better.
Myth: Because young people have close relationships with brands, their ideal relationship with government is more like a consumer relationship.
Reality: Younger people are cynical about corporations and feel that shareholders are the real winners in a consumer relationship, not consumers. The parts of the consumer world they wish to draw into the public sector include clarity over value for money and creative service delivery, not the whole relationship.
Myth: Consumer choice appeals to younger people, so choice in public services must be the solution to most problems and give them
a feeling of control.
Reality: Though personalisation of services is important, and the choice agenda is well established, younger people want government to behave like the best consumer brands, pre-empting their desires, coming up with elegant solutions for services, and nudging people towards good behaviours in a ‘soft paternal’ way; personalised, tailored services but with a reduced burden of responsibility on the service user for researching and making complex choices.
Myth: Younger people love technology, so government can signal its youth credentials by using technology as much as possible.
Reality: This generation understands and uses technology, but it is such a norm that it is no longer exciting just for its own sake. Parties must use it creatively.