The generational decay of Euroscepticism in the UK and the EU referendum

Figures & data

Table 1. APC analysis of Euroscepticism in Britain, 1979–2015.

	Basic model		Prob (%)	Full model		Prob (%)
	Coef.	S. er.		Coef.	S. er.
Generation (Post-War)			38.5			32.3
Millennials	−0.51*	0.21	27.4	−0.33	0.31	25.6
90s	−0.43†	0.15	28.9	−0.14	0.23	29.4
80s	−0.21	0.11	33.7	0.07	0.16	33.9
60–70s	−0.08	0.07	36.7	0.09	0.11	34.4
Pre-War	−0.29†	0.10	31.9	−0.34*	0.14	25.0
Age	0.01‡	0.00		0.02†	0.01
Year (1979)
1997	−0.35‡	0.09		−0.14	0.14
2005	−0.47‡	0.11		−0.23	0.20
2010	−0.18	0.13		−0.03	0.19
2015	−0.39†	0.14		−0.08	0.22
Gender (female)	0.06	0.04		−0.02	0.06
Political interest (none/little)						37.1
Some				−0.25‡	0.07	31.3
Quite a lot				−0.32‡	0.07	29.9
A great deal				−0.40‡	0.10	28.4
Education (no qualification)						39.8
GCSE D-G/NVQ 1				−0.23*	0.11	34.4
GCSE A-C/NVQ 2				−0.25†	0.08	34.0
A-Level/NVQ 3				−0.38‡	0.09	31.1
Sub-degree HE/NVQ 4				−0.50‡	0.08	28.5
Degree/higher degree				−0.88‡	0.10	21.5
Tenure (rented)						35.2
Own home				−0.24‡	0.06	30.0
Social class (employer in large org./professional/managerial)						28.5
Intermediate/non-Manual				0.12	0.08	31.0
Small org. employer/manager				0.25*	0.10	33.9
Supervisory/skilled manual				0.25†	0.09	33.9
Semi/un-skilled manual				0.26†	0.09	34.2
Other/never worked				0.26*	0.12	34.0
Immigration (bad for Britain)						35.7
Good for Britain				−0.59‡	0.06	23.5
Ethnicity (White European)						31.8
Non-White European				−0.18	0.13	28.1
Class ID (none)						30.6
Working class				0.13*	0.06	33.5
Middle class				−0.02	0.07	30.2
Other/don’t know				0.13	0.15	33.5
Party ID (Conservative)						37.3
Labour				−0.47‡	0.07	27.2
Lib Dem				−0.55‡	0.09	25.5
SNP/Plaid Cymru				−0.34†	0.13	29.6
UKIP/BNP				1.34‡	0.20	69.4
None				−0.20*	0.09	32.7
Other				−0.27	0.16	30.7
Religion (none)						32.7
Church of England/Wales/Episcopal				−0.03	0.06	32.0
Roman Catholic				−0.22*	0.09	28.1
Presbyterian/Church of Scotland				−0.33†	0.11	26.0
Other Christian				−0.11	0.09	30.4
Other				0.19	0.16	36.9
Plus controls for domestic political judgements
Constant	−0.91‡	0.18		0.29	0.30
Obs	14538			8582
Prob > chi^2	0.000			0.000
Pseudo r^2	0.03			0.11

Note: Predicted probabilities calculated using Stata’s margin command, with other variables held at means.

Source: BES 1979, 1997, 2005, 2010, and 2015.

*Statistically significant at 95% confidence level.

†Significant at 99%.

‡Significant at 99.9%.

Table 2. Predicted probability of Euroscepticism (%).

	Basic	Cognitive mobilization and post-materialism	Human capital	National identity	Domestic politics	Full
Millennials	27.4	24.8	24.2	27.4	28.6	25.6
90s	28.9	28.8	28.5	29.3	29.2	29.4
80s	33.7	32.7	33.7	35.0	34.3	33.9
60s–70s	36.7	34.9	33.7	37.0	36.6	34.4
Post-War	38.5	34.9	38.1	37.8	36.4	32.3
Pre-War	31.9	29.1	30.7	31.2	28.9	25.0
Average Difference	6.5	7.3	8.7	6.7	4.5	5.4
Millennials vs. Post-War	−11.1	−10.1	−13.9	−10.4	−7.8	−6.4
Pseudo r^2	0.03	0.06	0.05	0.06	0.07	0.11

Source: BES 1979, 1997, 2005, 2010, and 2015.

Figure 1. Age/generation and Euroscepticism in Britain. Source: BES 1979, 1997, 2005, 2010, and 2015.

Note: Values were averaged across age bands to provide a smoothed estimate of the proportion of Eurosceptic voters and make trends more reliable and easy to see.