Austerity and young people’s political attitudes in the UK

Abstract

This article studies the impact of the 2012 British austerity policies on youth political attitudes using a difference-in-differences. The study achieves this by combining longitudinal survey data from “Understanding Society” with a district-level estimate of the austerity shock that each individual faced between the years 2013 and 2015. The findings indicate that the welfare cuts had a negative impact on the political efficacy of young people, as they were more inclined to believe that public officials did not care about them and that they had no say in the actions of the government. Additionally, their satisfaction with politics, as determined by their perceived level of political influence, also decreased. Overall, the results suggest that the implementation of austerity measures increased the likelihood of political disenfranchisement among young people in Britain.