The Age Factor: Older Americans Most Negative About Iraq War

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- A special Gallup Poll analysis of more than 7,000 interviews conducted this year shows that older Americans are more likely than those who are younger to believe that going to war in Iraq was a mistake. Americans who are 70 and older are particularly more likely to say the war was a mistake. The impact of age on views of the war persists among subgroups of Republicans, independents, and Democrats, and also occurs regardless of one's gender.

Background

Gallup has asked Americans whether U.S. involvement in Iraq was a "mistake" in seven polls so far this year. Across these more than 7,000 interviews, an average of 57% have said "yes."

One already well-established conclusion confirmed by an analysis of this large dataset is the unsurprising fact that views on this war are intensely political. One of the single best predictors of whether an American views the war as a mistake is his or her political party identification.

The Importance of Age

Beyond this more obvious political difference, one of the more surprising findings in the analysis is the relationship between age and views on the war. Given the indelible images of young people protesting the Vietnam War in the 1960s and early 1970s, and the fact that it is generally young people who are most involved in actually fighting wars, one might hypothesize that opposition to the Iraq war would be highest among younger Americans.

That, however, is not the case. Americans aged 50 and older are significantly more likely to say the war was a mistake than are those who are under the age of 50, by a 12 percentage-point margin.

We can look at this relationship between age and views on the war in more detail by breaking age into roughly 10-year age groups.

The differences in the "mistake" percentage among the three age groups below age 50 are not consistent. Americans 30 to 39 years of age are least likely to say the war has been a mistake, while those both younger and older are more likely to say the war has been a mistake. Taken as a whole, as noted above, an average of 52% are in the "mistake" category.

But the pattern of belief that the war was a mistake is somewhat more linear for those aged 50 and older. The percentage saying the war was a mistake is similar among those 50 to 59 and 60 to 69, and then increases among those aged 70 to 79 and 80 and above. Americans in all four groups aged 50 and older show a "mistake" percentage of at least 61%, and the average is 64%.

Gender

Women are more likely than men to say the Iraq war was a mistake.

Women are also more predominant in the older age groups in America (that is, women have a longer average lifespan than men), so it could be conjectured that one reason for the higher percentage of older age groups saying the Iraq war was a mistake is the increasing predominance of women in those groups.

The data show, however, that the age difference in the mistake percentage persists among both men and women.

It is true that within most of these age groups, women are at least slightly more likely than men to say the war in Iraq was a mistake. But the general pattern of the positive relationship between age and the "mistake" percentage occurs within both gender groups. Women aged 50 and older are more likely than women under 50 to say the war was a mistake; the same is true for and men aged 50 and older vs. men under 50.

Women aged 70 and older show the greatest opposition to the war.

Age by Party

This review began with the display of the extraordinary impact of political party identification on attitudes toward the war in Iraq. Republicans are generally supportive of the war and Democrats overwhelmingly opposed. The question can therefore be asked: Is some of the reason older Americans are more opposed to the war based on the fact that older Americans are more likely to identify themselves as Democrats?

It is true that Americans aged 50 and older are slightly more likely than are those younger than age 50 to identify as Democrats, and slightly less likely to identify as independents.

But an analysis of the three-way relationship between age, party identification, and perceptions of the war in Iraq shows that the impact of age on views of the war in Iraq as a mistake is present within all three political party groups.

There is a 12 percentage-point difference by age in views of the war as a mistake among Republicans, a 6-point difference among independents, and a 14-point difference among Democrats.

Of course, as the accompanying table shows, regardless of age, Democrats are much more likely than independents to say the war was a mistake, and independents are in turn more likely than Republicans to say the war was a mistake. But the age factor seems to be present regardless of these overall, broad tendencies.

Finally, we can look at the more complex relationship among age, gender, party, and views of the war:

Here again, we find evidence for the persistence of the age factor in views of the war regardless of one's gender or political orientation. Within every subgroup of the American population created by the combination of age, gender, and party identification, those who are 50 and older are more likely than those under age 50 to say the war was a mistake.

All in all, perceptions that the war was a mistake range from a low of 20% among 18- to 49-year-old Republican women to a high of 89% among Democratic men and Democratic women aged 50 and older.

Conclusion

The significant increase in opposition to the Iraq war (based on the responses to this "mistake" question) occurs among Americans in this large sample who are aged 50 to 70 and then even more so among those 70 and older.

A number of hypotheses could be advanced to explain this age effect, some based on the life experiences of specific age cohorts. Americans who are now in their 50s and early 60s were most likely to have been affected by the Vietnam War, and those who are now in their 70s and 80s were most likely to have been affected by World War II and the Korean War.

It is not possible, however, at this point to determine if these so-called "cohort" effects are reasonable causal explanations for the differences observed in this analysis.

Additionally, it is important to note that the differences are not enormous. As has been seen, Americans' party identification or views of President Bush are more much more determinant of their views on the war than their ages. However, the large sample sizes involved here allow us to make the assumption that these age differences are valid reflections of patterns in the underlying American population.

Politically speaking, older Americans are important because they are disproportionately likely to vote, which in theory could give Democrats an advantage based on the war in the coming 2008 elections.

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews with an aggregated sample of 7,074 national adults, aged 18 and older, interviewed as part of seven surveys conducted January through May 2007. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points. The sampling error is larger for subsamples. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.