Gen Z, the Demographic Timebomb and the Union’s Lifestyle Silo Problem

Mark McGeoghegan, a researcher at the Centre for Constitutional Change at Edinburgh University has published a study asking ‘Is Scottish independence inevitable?’ which looks at the relationship between birth cohort and secessionism in Scotland. In plain language – do people change their views on the constitution as they grow older?

McGeoghegan explains the background to the study:

“Since the 2014 independence referendum, a debate over the relationship between age and support for Scotland seceding from the United Kingdom has flared up regularly. Polls consistently show that the youngest voters are much more likely than older voters to support Scottish secession. The most recent Norstat poll for the Sunday Times found that among likely voters, 67% of those aged between 16 and 34 would vote Yes to independence, compared to less than 40% among those aged 55 and over. It is not unusual for polls to find even greater gaps between the youngest and oldest voters, and these figures are routinely deployed in arguments over whether Scottish secession is only a matter of time.”

“These arguments tend to break down along partisan lines. Supporters of secession often make what might be called the ‘actuarial’ argument: as older, less secessionist voters pass away, and as younger, more secessionist voters come of age and replace them in the electorate, the level of overall support for secession will rise until a persistent majority are in favour of Scottish secession. Their opponents typically respond with an argument rooted in prospect theory: as younger voters age, they will become more risk averse – due to having a mortgage, pension, savings, children, and so on – and thus will become less likely to support radical policies in general and secession from the United Kingdom in particular. This is, essentially, a variation on the argument that voters become more conservative as they age.”

For his research McGeoghegan used data from the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey collected between 1999 when the study first launched, and 2023. There are a few bits of jargon to get your head around.

The ‘Actuarial’ argument: as older, Unionist voters pass away, and as younger, more pro-independence voters come of age and replace them in the electorate, the level of overall support for independence will rise until a persistent majority are in favour of Scottish independence.

A ‘Cohort effect’ refers to differences between birth cohorts that persist over time, while ‘Lifecycle effects’ refer to changes that occur among a birth cohort as they age. A third type of effect, ‘Period effects’, refers to events that shift every birth cohort at the same time.

McGeoghegan used the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey which asked respondents ‘which of these statements comes closest to your view?

1. Scotland should become independent, separate from the UK and the European Union.
2. Scotland should become independent, separate from the UK but part of the European Union.
3. Scotland should remain part of the UK, with its own elected parliament which has some taxation powers.
4. Scotland should remain part of the UK, with its own elected parliament which has no taxation powers.
5. Scotland should remain part of the UK without an elected parliament.’

Mark says: “I find no evidence that younger birth cohorts become less secessionist as they age.”

He concludes: “We started with a clear question: is the relationship between age and support for Scottish secession a cohort effect, a lifecycle effect, or a cohort effect mediated by a lifecycle effect? This analysis should lead us to reject the hypothesis that there is a lifecycle effect at work, at least until the passage of time, the collection of more data, and a reappraisal of the data convinces us otherwise. This is not the same as saying that there is no lifecycle effect at work or that no such effect could emerge in the future. But there is no evidence for such an effect right now.”

“The “actuarial” argument, however distasteful as prominent unionists have often found it, is better supported by the SSA data (20 waves from 1999-2023), than the lifecycle-effect counterargument.”

Mark adds the caveat that: “This should not be taken as evidence that independence is inevitable” and notes that opinions are malleable.

None of this should be surprising to anyone. But some of the reaction point to a wider problem for Unionists. The ‘prospect theory’ that they cling to, the idea that young radical independentistas will moderate their views as they have children, a pension and settle into  suburban idyll. But this vision is predicated on a Unionist dream, and locked into their own lifestyle silo.

Older, comfortably off Unionist voters (and journos) imagine a world of continuity, that is part of both the appeal and the trajectory of their worldview. Everything Just the Same Forever and Ever. UK:OK.

Yet as their most celebrated cheerleader, Gordon Brown, repeatedly tells us, living standards are crashing, and the best we should hope for is better and better foodbanks. The Unionist Imaginary of nationalist home-owners renouncing their foolish youth with its silly notions of living in a functioning democracy is a closed-world fantasy.