Twitter users are expressing their excitement over new data which found that millennials are becoming less conservative as they continue to age.
In a piece published by The Financial Times, John Burn-Murdoch looked at a series of US and UK election surveys, which were conducted from 1964 up to 2022. After looking at the data, he discovered how different generations’ political perspectives have changed over the years, including the views of millennials, who are people born between 1981 and 1996.
Burn-Murdoch found that millennials in the US are “tacking much further to the left on economics” than previous generations, due to the fact that they are reaching “political maturity in the aftermath of the global financial crisis”. This could also be why they’re in favour of greater wealth distribution from the rich to the poor.
This is also evident in Britain, as the generation is becoming more left wing than Gen-Xers and boomers were at millennials’ ages. He suggested that this was not due to Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss’s time in office, as she sparked widespread criticism after announcing a major tax U-turn.
Instead, he explained that millennials “developed different values to previous generations”, which are “shaped by experiences unique to them,” so they do not feel like they have the same views as conservatives.
Burn-Murdoch also included a chart that compared political views of bombers, Gen-Xers, silent generation, and millennials. However, millennial voters are not following the chart’s trend, where generations have become more conservative as they age.
According to the results, the millennials “in both Britain and the US are by far the least conservative 35-year-olds in recorded history”. Burn-Murdoch also found that at the age of 35, millennials will be less conservative than the national average.
On Twitter, multiple people praised these results and noted how millennials’ political stance could be making a difference in the world.
“It’s nice to see that we clearly have data to back up what the vibes have been saying for a while, that millennials are left wing in a way that previous generations weren’t,” one wrote. “This is just sensational. Right wing parties having to ask themselves how to appeal to 40somethings.”
“Good news, if the world can only survive long enough for the impact to make a difference: young people just aren’t turning small-c conservative as they age at the pace previous generations did,” another wrote.
A third said: “Millennials and Generation Z are going to save the world.”
Other Twitter users pointed out that millennials may be becoming more left wing due to the financial circumstances that they’re currently facing.
“It’s probably because conservatism is based on stability and security and millennials have literally never had either in their adult lives,” one wrote.
“Being the first generation in modern history poorer than the last will have consequences,” another wrote.
