The Generational Education Divide and the Transnational Cleavage

Two socio-structural markers that have attracted much attention in the debate on new cleavages are levels of formal education and generational cohorts. Existing research shows, first, that education structures political attitudes and vote choice along the transnational divide, with the higher educated taking more cosmopolitan positions and disproportionately voting for new-left/Green parties and the lower educated taking more nationalist positions and disproportionately voting for radical-right parties (Abou-Chadi & Hix 2021; Stubager 2010). Second, in contrast to the notion of a “cultural backlash” driven by older cohorts (Norris & Inglehart 2019) generational differences in cultural attitudes are rather small and, if anything, it is the oldest cohorts that are least attracted to radical-right parties (Schäfer 2022). However, with a few exceptions (Steiner 2023; Lindskog and Oskarson 2023), the effects of education and generations have so far only been studied in isolation. In this paper, we propose that it is precisely the intersection of education and generational cohorts that structures political attitudes and vote choice along the transnational divide. We posit that two mechanisms have led to education becoming more consequential for more recent cohorts. First, the information revolution has amplified the relevance of formal education for individuals’ life chances, thereby driving a politically consequential wedge between the lower and the higher educated. Second, unlike earlier cohorts, those born later have been socialized into a world in which the transnational divide already had become politically salient. The heightened salience of the new divide in their formative years should have increasingly motivated the lower and the higher educated to build allegiances to parties situated at different sides of the divide. Accordingly, the educational gap in GAL vs. TAN attitudes and voting should be larger in more recent cohorts. Thus, rather than a divide between generations, we should see a growing educational divide within generations. To study the combined effects of education and generation, we turn to data from the European Social Survey, rounds 1 to 10. These data allow us to study both vote choices and attitudes regarding the transnational divide, thus bringing these two perspectives together in one study. Our preliminary results lend some support to the expectation of a growing divergence between educational groups regarding vote choices. For example, educational differences in radical-right voting are more pronounced within the Generation X and among Millennials compared to earlier cohorts. Yet, for attitudes, we also uncover evidence of outlooks converging again among Millennials, driven by lower-educated Millennials being more cosmopolitan than the lower-educated within earlier cohorts. This tentatively suggests a more complicated pattern of first divergence and then some convergence between educational groups across generations. Our paper contributes to important debates in the literature. First, we address the question of the socio-structural roots of the transnational cleavage. Second, in doing so, we add to an emerging body of research which sees electoral realignment as being largely driven by generational replacement (van der Brug & Rekker 2021). Third, our paper speaks to an ongoing debate on how political attitudes differ across generations.