Could this be why older voters seem to be more prone to voting for No?

My finger travels happily along the age range, marking a healthy pro-indy sentiment from 16-25 years (percentage in the low 70s) to 45-54 (low 60s). And then it’s ... Adventures in Grumpyland.

Ages 55-64 can only manage a shoulder-slumped mid-40s for Yes. Beyond that is a stick-brandishing 77% for No among the over 75s (according to the most recent Danbury/Onward poll).

There’s a lot of juicy social science that can be squeezed out of these numbers (and I’ll do so later on). But allow me a wee bit of personal reflection first, as a 57-year-old somewhat at odds with my demographic.

What I want to recall, when I first started campaigning for independence as a 20-something in the late 80s/early 90s, was just how socially odd it was to make the indy choice. Especially if your ideological slant was to the left. “Comrades” would regard you as wilfully jumping on the slide towards irrationalist barbarism.

Beyond that, relatives would be affronted at the “stupidity” and “embarrassment” of your position. Everything about the project was “narrow”, “tartan-wrapped”, “parochial”. The enemy was Thatcherism across the island, and this “Nat nonsense” was a perverse diversion from the island-wide struggle.

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A subjective account, I admit. However, these voices weren’t just coming from peers, but from those decades older than me at the time. I felt that I was rubbing against a mightily deep-set grain, chiefly concerned with advance through Westminster and a British context.

I’m recalling this because it maybe illuminates one of the most interesting points that academics are making about the age gulf in attitudes towards indy. That’s the distinction, in the words of Edinburgh University’s Ailsa Henderson, between “lifecycle” and “generational” (or “cohort”) effects.

“Lifecycle” can be a condensed way of saying “you always get more conservative when you get older, because you have accumulated assets (like a mortgage and a pension), and you might have more to lose from a substantial change in the status quo”. And as pollster Mark Diffley points out, citing the Scottish Referendum Survey and the Lord Ashcroft indyref polls: “Older voters [in 2014] were significantly more likely to mention economic issues as being important to how they voted – for example, 40% mentioned currency as in their top two or three reasons for casting their vote, compared to 29% among the youngest voters. And 45% mentioned pensions, significantly higher than all other age groups”.

But to follow the money might not always be the correct path. Mark also notes that the leading reason for voting No in 2014 was “because I feel British and believe in the Union”, at 29.5%. Diffley also quotes a 2019 paper (from the sociologist David McCrone) in which “seven in 10 Scots who are aged 65+ feel ‘strongly British’ … By comparison, only 36% of Scottish 18-24 year olds, compared with 61% of that age group in England, say they are strongly British.”

As McCrone goes on to say, “It is not so much growing old which brings this about, but being born and brought up in the mid-20th century”. By which McCrone means that these attitudes aren’t determined by “lifecycle”, but might be a “generational” matter. This generation is a historical “cohort”, moving through the years together, who have shared experiences of British unity (whether the BBC, the NHS, the nationalised industries).

I did a call-out to my Thoughtland Twitter constituency a few days ago on this topic – and their personal hunches supported the cohort thesis.

“They were the last generation raised by parents who experienced WWII and the last to benefit from free university tuition”, posted @kennyjamieson. “Then they benefited from boom years in the 80s and 90s – easy access onto housing ladder, final salary pensions etc. Now they’re comfortable with status quo.”

But Ailsa Henderson raised another interesting point. If you measure it over the last few years, the age at which Yes flips to No is “creeping upwards”. This further dents the primacy of “lifecycle” factors. It’s not just the inherent grumpiness of getting old kicking in, imposing a saltired ceiling on a potential Yes vote. Instead, this might well be a generation, historically tied to in British loyalties and identities, that is literally and statistically … dying off.

Looking at the younger age groups, there’s almost an exact percentage reversal from No to Yes, between 2014 and now. Henderson puts this down to “Brexit annoyance among younger folk”.

But if you match this solid increase of pre-elderly, pro-Yes attitudes with the (let’s be blunt) mortality of their opponents, then it would seem that an independence majority is nearly a demographic inevitability.

My Thoughtland Twitter sounding-board had other explanations for the intransigence of No elders, also backed up by academic research. “It’s the last generation that Scottish history bypassed at school (as well as truth about colonisation)”, suggests @Davidporte69.

And @Roeddydynamddim thinks their “worldview is formed by the cultural filter of the broadcast and newspaper MSM, particularly from the mid 60s to the late 90s”. They also have less digital literacy that might enable them to sample alternative views.

Professor Henderson sent me research which indicates that “Scottish voters who are politically knowledgeable have a greater capacity to predict the consequences of political outcomes … therefore they are less affected by their attitudes to risk when making their ballot choices”.

So is it a media and education question? Is it about prising gran and granda away from their Daily Mail, Sunday Express, or Reporting Scotland at 6.30pm? Easier said than done (but it turns out that having another physical newspaper available, to put in their hands, could be very useful …)

Given these consistent age distributions of the Yes vote, and looking at the overall population numbers of Scotland, it might seem very hard for the indy movement to lose a fair and well-run indyref. The Diffley Partnership tells me that the total current population of Scotland is 5,463,300. The 16-54 year olds make up 2,759,942. Fifty-fives and over? 1,781,961 (Under-16s are 921,397). So motivation and turn-out are key.

Note: in 2014, 96% of over 65s voted. The lowest turnout was 18-24, where only 54% of this demographic voted.

A generation of Scots have experienced some or all of their adulthood under a Scottish Parliament, and now find it a preferable context in which to build their future (particularly after the disruptions of Brexit and Covid). They are in the majority, and the Scottish nation is theirs to dispose with as they like, when the next constitutional vote arrives.

The policy case for indy can surely be well-made – there are many hands on deck for that. But the voters also have to brightly walk out of the door, when the occasion demands it, to take active responsibility for their country. Let’s see if the pre-grumpy can seize the day.