Does Social Class Affect Voting Behaviour in Britain2

8/2/2019 Does Social Class Affect Voting Behaviour in Britain2

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1 Petrescu Andreea Ioana

Does social class affect voting behaviour in Britain?

This data report will try to answer positively or negatively the question of whether

people who are part of a certain social class have a certain voting behaviour due to this.

Using certain theories of voting such as the social determinism and the Michigan theory as

well as other researched schemes backed up by data from the 2005 survey, I will attempt to

get an answer to the research question and analyse the findings in the context.

According to Harrop and Miller (1987, pp.183) the concept of class is defined

differently by sociologists and political analysts. Therefore we cannot find a generalised

definition of this concept. Considering this fact we can take the definitions of two iconic

figures Max Weber and Karl Marx as starting point. Max Weber considers that class is

consistent of people who due to their labour market position tend to share similar life

chances, while Karl Marx defines classes in capitalist society by means of production.

Although Weber only provides a test by which classes can be identified, Marx categorises

them clearly. Marxs categorisation includes the bourgeoisie which is comprised by the

owners of the product means and the proletariat- the class that had to sell its labour in orderto survive.

Agreeing with the idea that people can be categorized in terms of occupation, we

can then consider this as a good way of detecting influence of class on voting. Thus emphasis

can be put on how people see themselves as being part of a class or another. This is thought

to be a way in which one can observe stronger association with party choice. Therefore the

first hypothesis is that class can be shown by the type of work a person is doing or how a

person choses his class and this would reflect on how people vote. What I expect to find

after taking as an independent variable the type of work and as a dependent variable the

party they voted for, is a great number of the ones that consider themselves as working class

to vote for Labour and a majority of those who consider themselves middle class to vote for

the Conservative party. In order to test this hypothesis I have generated the following:


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No.1

As we can see in this pie chart most of the people asked describe themselves as

identifying with a certain party. Although it is confirmed by class consciousness surveys that

class awareness is still high in Britain as seen here, and that most people will describe

themselves in class terms when asked in a survey, only a minority of them believe that class

barriers are as strong as they were (1987, Harrop and Miller,pp.186).

We can correlate these data with the process called by Butler and Stokes as socialisation.

This process is translated in the fact that everyone gains a vast volume of information as a

consequence of interactions within families, friends, neighbours, colleagues and so on.

According to Butler and Stokes, most people learned to associate the different parties with

classes and most adopted their parents party (2007, Denver,D.,pp.49). This is partly true

today as approximately 29% of the people who have taken part in the BES 2005 survey have

answered yes regarding if they consider themselves as supporters of a certain party and as

we can see in the crosstab generated below in the SPSS programme that they are partly

separated in two: supporters of Labour Party and Conservative Party. These are the two

large blocs that Butler and Stokes were talking about and the separation of which was

produced between 1950 and 1970. This is talked about as being the era of Alignment, and as

we can see this division is still going on today but on a smaller scale than before.


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No.2

Source: BES 2005 cross-section survey

Another hypothesis would be to also look at peoples incomes and class them by that andthen see if it is still true that people with low incomes vote in majority for Labour and people

with higher incomes vote Conservative. In order to test this hypothesis we would take

peoples incomes as an independent variable and the party they vote for as a dependent

one. Therefore if class is still as important as it was in the 1950-1970 it would theoretically

have to have an effect on any other variable when class was controlled.

Because, according to the Alford index, a very important way of calculating the

extent of class voting, Britain was amongst the top countries in which voting by class had a

high figure but which is in a current decline(1987,Harrop and Miller). This could be explainedby the fact that in Britain, class matters electorally much more than in other countries but

not because there is a great conflict between classes but because other cleavages are quite

weak for example the religious cleavages since most of the country is protestant.

Though if we regard the extremes in the crosstab below, we can observe that

people with a very low income, have voted Labour and those with higher than 70,000 have

voted Conservatives more. But if we look at the other 2 income ranges we can see an

irregularity in the fact that 40% of the 5,000-30,000 range which could be generally classed

as working class voted Labour but also 37% of the middle higher class ranged between 30,000-70,000 has voted the left-wing party. Therefore the class cleavages have not

influenced enough the votes. This can also be explained by a reorientation from

Conservatives to Labour and from Labour to Liberal Democrats which makes the balance

more inclined towards Labour, making class less relevant in the voting process.


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Source: BES2005 cross-section survey

No.3

Party Voted For General Election

Annual Household Income

Total

less than

5000

5,001-

30,000

30,001-

70,000

70,000 or

moreLabour Count 33 482 233 32 780

% within Party Voted

For General Election

4,2% 61,8% 29,9% 4,1% 100,0%

% within Annual

Household Income

55,0% 41,9% 37,0% 32,7% 40,3%

Conservatives Count



% within Annual

Household Income

11

2,0%

18,3%

304

54,8%

26,4%

199

36%

31,6%

40

7,2%

40,8%

554

100%

28,6%

Liberal-Democrats Count



% within Annual

Household Income

11

2,7%

18,3%

233

56,8%

20,3%

147

35,8%

23,4%

19

4,6%

19,3%

410

100%

21,2%

Others Count 5 131 50 7 193

% within Party VotedFor General Election

2,6% 67,9% 25,7% 3,6% 100%

% within Annual

Household Income

8,3 11,4% 8,0% 7,2% 10%

Total Count 60 1150 629 98 1937



3,1% 59,4% 32,5% 5,1% 100,0%

% within Annual

Household Income

100,0% 100,0% 100,0% 100,0% 100,0%


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No.4

Source: Data from BES 2005 cross-section survey

Looking at this bar chart of the BES 2005, we can see the same results, that people in

working class have voted more Labour. This bar chart emphasises the amount of people that

have voted Labour from the total that have answered these survey questions.

Another important variable that in my opinion can help in defining class is education

because in this we can also see familys influence on the individual, the wealth of the parents

who is also reflected in this as a well-educated and rich, income and occupation.

Education has always been in a very tight relation with social class. This was mostly

due to the fact that wealthy families, which were usually integrated in the bourgeoisie class,

these were capable to send their children to school and get them properly educated,whereas poor families, classed as manual workers or proletariat did not have the money to

keep their children in school or they had a family tradition which made the need for school

as useless because they learned all they needed from the family trough the tradition of

passing the craft from one generation to the other.

Nowadays, as we can see in the table below, it is much harder to predict if a person is part of

a certain social class relating to its education and the party it would vote for considering

that.

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

Labour Conservatives Liberal

Democrats

Others

70,000

AnnualHousehold

Income

ount

Party Voted For General Election


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Looking at the statistical table above it can be observe that there is a comparable percentage

of each education scope that has voted Labour. This demonstrates what I have stated above,

which is that due to wider access to education, the difference between the highly educated

people and the lower educated cannot be seen any more in voting behaviour.

I have chosen these hypotheses because in my opinion they are the most representative and

have the most relevance in the issue in question. Of course other variables are also

important when explaining how class affects peoples votes. Therefore, in my opinion

variables such as age and what neighbourhood people live are very important in determining

voters choices. Although the most important one I would say is the social environment they

live in and where they grew up, if their parents and family had strong political opinions. Of

course it is not necessary for a person to be totally influenced by this but I believe this has a

great deal of influence amongst the others enumerated already. I sustain this idea by

referring to the Michigan theory which demonstrates that long-term factors are the most

important in determining peoples choices in our case party choices that people make.

Also, interaction between the voters long-term party identification and various short-term

influences such as: current political issues which concern the voter, campaign events, the

personalities of party leaders or candidates and the tactical situation in the local

constituencies (2007,Denver, pp. 20-21) can influence on a certain level. There is also the

situation where identifying with a party is not the same as voting for it. This happens when

the party the voter usually sustains has a very low chance of winning.

No.5

Party Voted For General ElectionHighest Educational Qualification

Total

Higher

Education

Medium

Education Low Education Lower Medium

Other technical,

professional

education

Labour Count 1338 397 360 314 73 2482

% within Party Voted For

General Election

53,9% 16,0% 14,5% 12,7% 2,9% 100,0%

% within Highest

Educational Qualification

36,4% 40,5% 36,5% 46,5% 18,5% 37,0%

Conservatives

and Others

Count 2341 583 627 361 322 4234


General Election

55,3% 13,8% 14,8% 8,5% 7,6% 100,0%

% within Highest


63,6% 59,5% 63,5% 53,5% 81,5% 63,0%

Total Count 3679 980 987 675 395 6716


General Election

54,8% 14,6% 14,7% 10,1% 5,9% 100,0%

% within Highest


100,0% 100,0% 100,0% 100,0% 100,0% 100,0%


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No.6


This table shows that 89% of those who have an income of more that 30,000 which we

would normally class as upper middle-class has educational qualification this representing

almost half of the people interviewed. This data can be correlated with the data in the table

No.5 but also No.3. This can prove again that weather you have been raised in a low income

family with Labour principles and now you even though having achieved yourself, one willstill vote for the same party out of habit and maybe thinking this is the mentality I was raised

in and know as the straight one. Thus, it can be taken as a possible explanation of the great

number of the electorate voting labour and considering themselves as labour supporters

while having medium towards high incomes.

Have Educational Qualification

Annual Household Income

Total

less than

5000

5,001-

30,000

30,001-

70,000

70,000 or

more

Yes Count 68 2368 5712 1651 9799

% within Have

Educational

Qualification

0,7% 24,2% 58,3% 16,8% 100,0%

% within Annual

Household Income

47,9% 61,4% 89,2% 94,8% 80,7%

No Count 74 1486 693 91 2344

% within Have

Educational

Qualification

3,2% 63,4% 29,6% 3,9% 100,0%

% within Annual

Household Income

52,1% 38,6% 10,8% 5,2% 19,3%

Total Count 142 3854 6405 1742 12143

% within Have

Educational

Qualification

1,2% 31,7% 52,7% 14,3% 100,0%

% within Annual

Household Income

100,0% 100,0% 100,0% 100,0% 100,0%


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Age and generation can have an influence on how interested people are in politics like also

discussed by Denver (2007,pp. 203). For example old people can be more interested in

politics as they have more time on their hand whereas young people might not be

interested in politics because they have other things to do, they just began living their lives.

Or there can be the hypothesis that old people still go to vote out of habit but their lifeexperience tells them that nothing much is going to change if it did not happen by now and

young people could be interested in politics as they are optimistic about the future and want

their future to be better, so they would vote because they think they can change something.

Also young people can be more left-wing than the old, they can be more attracted to

political extremes which they think can do a change, rebel against the old system which is

not according to their needs, they can also be more attracted to new parties and have a

better response to events therefore can be more easily influenced by campaigns and other

events like that.

Although the two theories used so far as reference are relevant, they also have a gapwhich is further filled by the rational choice theory which unlike the first two, makes

reference to the voters opinions not only to the influences of parents which can sometimes

be short term ones until one finds its own identity and beliefs as a result of life experiences.

This theory assumes that, as with consumers, it can be assumed that voters can and do

weigh up the pros and cons of voting for a certain party in order to choose the one that

brings them the greatest benefit(2007,Denver,D,pp23-24). This theory can also be an answer

for the findings above.

As a result of this report we can say that, even though class was a very important

variable in the way the British electorate voted, after all the tested hypotheses we can

clearly state that class still has some influence but it is not the most important factor in

peoples choices of party at this time. Class has become one of the many factors that help

the voter in his decision. The most probable explanation is that this happened due to

divisions that have become less intense not just in Britain but all over the world shaped by

the electors social identity in which class has lost its power since the Alignment Era of the

1950-1970s.


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BIBLIOGRAPHY

o Denver, D. (2003) Elections and Voters in Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave),ch.3,pp.48-

63,ch.2,pp.25-45,ch.4,pp.66-72

o Harrop, M. and W. L. Miller (1987): Elections and Voters: A Comparative Introduction(Basingstoke: Macmillan),pp.182-211,108-110

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Does Social Class Affect Voting Behaviour in Britain2