The Geography of Educational Voting: Understanding Where Individuals with Similar Qualifications Vote Differently Across Britain
The Geography of Educational Voting: Understanding Where Individuals with Similar Qualifications Vote Differently Across Britain
This study offers a novel account of the geographical variation in the association of educational attainment with electoral behaviour. It estimates multilevel random-coefficient models using survey data from the British Election Study Internet Panel and data on constituency characteristics to explore the extent to which, and reasons why, the voting behaviours of individuals with identical qualifications varied across different types of parliamentary constituencies in British general elections from 2015-2019. We find the geography of this educational cleavage has not been evenly distributed in recent years. While the individual-level association of educational attainment and vote choice indeed varied geographically at the 2015, 2017 and 2019 general elections, there is only limited evidence to suggest that similarly educated individuals voted differently in constituencies with low and high densities of persons with high levels of education. Rather, our findings suggest that constituency left behind-ness (broadly defined) is the most important factor in explaining the spatial heterogeneity of education-based voting in recent British general elections.
Simon, Elizabeth
36fefac9-7b40-47da-8638-46b54be1b56e
Durrant, Gabriele
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Jennings, Will
2ab3f11c-eb7f-44c6-9ef2-3180c1a954f7
Simon, Elizabeth
36fefac9-7b40-47da-8638-46b54be1b56e
Durrant, Gabriele
14fcc787-2666-46f2-a097-e4b98a210610
Jennings, Will
2ab3f11c-eb7f-44c6-9ef2-3180c1a954f7
Simon, Elizabeth, Durrant, Gabriele and Jennings, Will
(2024)
The Geography of Educational Voting: Understanding Where Individuals with Similar Qualifications Vote Differently Across Britain.
Political Geography.
(In Press)
Abstract
This study offers a novel account of the geographical variation in the association of educational attainment with electoral behaviour. It estimates multilevel random-coefficient models using survey data from the British Election Study Internet Panel and data on constituency characteristics to explore the extent to which, and reasons why, the voting behaviours of individuals with identical qualifications varied across different types of parliamentary constituencies in British general elections from 2015-2019. We find the geography of this educational cleavage has not been evenly distributed in recent years. While the individual-level association of educational attainment and vote choice indeed varied geographically at the 2015, 2017 and 2019 general elections, there is only limited evidence to suggest that similarly educated individuals voted differently in constituencies with low and high densities of persons with high levels of education. Rather, our findings suggest that constituency left behind-ness (broadly defined) is the most important factor in explaining the spatial heterogeneity of education-based voting in recent British general elections.
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Accepted/In Press date: 11 April 2024
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Local EPrints ID: 489174
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/489174
ISSN: 0962-6298
PURE UUID: 8b548469-e1bf-4973-a7aa-662c93cbefb2
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Date deposited: 16 Apr 2024 16:41
Last modified: 17 May 2024 01:35
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Author:
Elizabeth Simon
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