Despite reports of a surge in turnouts among young voters in the 2015 and 2017 United Kingdom general elections, statistical scrutiny by the British Elections Study revealed that the margin of error was too large to determine whether or not there was a significant increase or decrease in the number of young participants. In both cases, turnouts among those aged 18 to 24 was between 40% and 50%. Winning the support of young people does not necessarily translate to increasing young voters' turnouts, and positive reactions on social media may not lead to success at the ballot box. Initial reports of a youth surge came from constituency-level survey data, which has a strong chance of over-representing voters rather than the Kingdom as a whole. In addition, higher turnouts generally came from constituencies where there were already large proportions of young people, both toddlers and young adults, and such surges did not necessarily come from young voters. In 2017, there was indeed an increase in "overall" voter turnout, but only by 2.5%. Similarly, in the United States, despite the hype surrounding the political engagement and record turnout among young voters, their voting power has actually declined. In round terms, the share of voters between the ages of 18 and 24 will fall from 13% in 2000 to 12% in 2020 while that of voters aged 65 and over will rise from 18% to 23% during the same period, according to Richard Fry of the Pew Research Center. A consistent trend in the U.K. and many other countries is that older people are more likely to vote than their younger countrymen, and they tend to vote for more right-leaning (or conservative) candidates. This is a consistent trend since after the Second World War. According to Sean Simpsons of Ipsos, people are more likely to vote when they have more at stake, such as children to raise, homes to maintain, and income taxes to pay. Political scientist George Tilley notes that in the United Kingdom, while older people tend to vote for the Conservative Party, young people tend to choose the Labour Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, or the Green Party. He suggests that this generational gap is due to the fact that today's youths grew up in a completely different sociopolitical environments from their parents and grandparents and are more likely to have university experience, well known for making people socially liberal.