The silent generation

Sue Nieland, Sarah Crafter & Kesi Mahendran

As psychologists, and people interested in the psychological space, we all know the organisation of data collection involves terms of reference and deciding on categories – a potentially divisive process. However, there are times when such divisions can have real political consequences, such as the misrecognition or obscuring of a group of citizens. A group of citizens who are obscured are the so-called Silent Generation, born between 1927 and 1946, aged now over 76 years old.   

It isn’t known how remembering the use of Anderson shelters, rationing, and hiding under tables when the sirens went off in World War II affects how these citizens choose to vote in elections. In this article, drawing on a study with this generation, we explore the often-assumed narrative that older people were responsible for taking the UK out of the European Union within the UK-EU 2016 referendum.

Three generations

As the implications of the outcome of the Brexit referendum became clear, politicians and the media moved to find explanations for the vote to leave the European Union and to attribute blame. Various demographics were explored, and age became a variable positively associated with the likelihood to vote to leave the EU. 

Polling organisations, including YouGov, Survation, Ipsos and Eurobarometer, typically collect data on opinions and voting in 10-year age categories up to 65+, when further categorisation ceases, essentially leading to citizens with a potential age range of 40 years aggregated into a single category. Ipsos has reported data for a 75+ aggregated group, but when integrating with other demographics, for example, gender, they revert back to a 55+ aggregation. 

Within the 65+ aggregation, not only are there around 18 per cent of the UK population but there are also three generations of citizens. There are still some members of the ‘Greatest Generation’, aged over 95 years old, and many more members of the Boomer generation aged between 65 and 75 years. An overlooked generation forms the majority of citizens in this 65+ category, those ages between 76 and 94 years old, known as the Silent Generation.

When investigating the question of whether older voters were responsible for the outcome of the referendum, we found hidden trends within the larger aggregation of age data. These were first identified by Kieran Devine, who used Age-Period-Cohort analysis on Eurobarometer opinion data collected over several decades prior to the 2016 referendum. 

Devine indicated intriguingly that indirect measurement of attitudes to Europe revealed that the Silent Generation demonstrated more positive attitudes to Europe and the EU than younger members of the same 65+ age category. Their views on Europe were more aligned with those held by Generation Z, born between 1990 and 2010, the generation with the youngest members who were able to vote in 2016. 

Devine theorised that perhaps the memory of a time before the UK was a member of the European Community, and an appreciation of how peace has been largely maintained on the continent since the end of World War II, could have contributed to these less Eurosceptic attitudes of our oldest citizens. 

Essentially, the media portrayal of selfish older voters, as ‘screwing the young’ (Huffington Post, 2016) and comments made by politicians on the BBC in 2018, that older citizens were denying younger voters the benefits of freedom of movement and other benefits of EU membership, may only apply to the so-called ‘boomer’ generation members of the 65+ category, or may not apply at all. 

The basis of these claims is difficult to interrogate with aggregated polling data hiding the voting behaviour of the Silent Generation.

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