Abstract
The UK’s EU in/out referendum raised significant debate and speculation of the intention of the electorate and its motivations in voting; much of this debate was informed by simple data analysis examining individual factors, in isolation, and using opinion polling data. This, in the case of the EU referendum where multiple factors influence the decision simultaneously, failed to predict the eventual outcome. On June 23rd 2016, Britain’s vote to leave the EU came as a surprise to most observers, with a bigger voter turnout than that of any UK general election in the past decade with a turnout of 72.2%. In this research, we apply Multivariate Regression Analysis combined with a Logit Model to the real data to identify statistically significant factors that have influenced voting preference simultaneously as well as the odd ratio in favour of Leave. Visualizations of the key findings are also provided with heat maps and graphs.Higher education is found to be the predominant factor dividing the nation between Remain and Leave. We find that the marginal effect of higher education on the referendum decision is much stronger than any other factors particularly in England and Wales, where most Leave voters reside. An increase of about 3% in the proportion of British adults accessing to higher education in England and Wales could have reversed the referendum result in the UK. We also find that areas in England and Wales with a lower unemployment rate tended to have a higher turnout to support Leave while areas in Scotland and Northern Ireland with a higher proportion of university-educated British have a higher turnout to support Remain. A decrease of about 7% in turnout in England and Wales would reduce their Leave votes by about 4%, which could also change the result of the referendum. Further we find that individual areas with a higher proportion of British male adults show a higher percentage of Leave votes; A higher proportion of elderly British, in an individual area, can contribute to a relatively higher percentage of Leave votes, however, these extra Leave votes do not lead to a Leave outcome in the area on their own; The total Leave votes in individual areas are found to be insignificantly affected by the factors of the proportion of Britons born in the UK and the local income levels.
Highlights
The UK’s referendum on whether to remain as a member state of the European Union (EU) caused much debate and speculation at the time of the plebiscite and even more since the results in favour of Leave
We find that higher education is the predominant factor dividing the nation, with a marginal effect on the referendum decision being stronger than any other factors in England and Wales, where most Leave voters reside
An increase of about 3% in the proportion of British adults accessing to higher education in England and Wales could have reversed the referendum result in the UK
Summary
The UK’s referendum on whether to remain as a member state of the European Union (EU) caused much debate and speculation at the time of the plebiscite and even more since the results in favour of Leave. The Guardian (2016) compared, graphically, the referendum results to some key demographic characteristics (such as % residents with higher education and % residents not born in the UK) of the local authority areas, individually, to draw some patterns without mentioning what exact data were being used These comparisons for each individual factor in isolation, without rigorous statistical analysis, can lead to misinterpretation of the data in the situations typified by the EU referendum, where multiple factors influence a decision simultaneously. The remainder of the article is organised as follows: Section 2 provides the details of the data collections, the research methodologies, as well as the data analysis and main outputs
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