Educational attainment and the Brexit vote

Jump, Rob Calvert; Michell, Jo

Abstract

The Brexit vote is the most significant political event in recent British history. We present bivariate choropleth maps comparing the Leave vote share with age-adjusted secondary educational attainment. This provides an immediate visual representation of the spatial and bivariate correlations between these variables, as well as their geographical distribution. Only 12 of the 85 local authorities that voted Remain had lower than expected age-adjusted educational attainment; only 10 of the 95 local authorities in which the Leave vote share exceeded 60% had higher than expected age-adjusted educational attainment. While the effectiveness of choropleth maps for exploring the spatial characteristics of bivariate relationships has been discussed by a number of authors, our technique of using borders to highlight a threshold value appears to be under-utilised.

• Journal Article Type: Other
• Print ISSN: 0308-518X
• Electronic ISSN: 1472-3409
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Institution Citation: Jump, R. C., & Michell, J. (in press). Educational attainment and the Brexit vote. Environment and Planning A, https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X19866465
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X19866465
• Keywords: Brexit; education; choropleth