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Datawatch

Abe has Japan's youth on his side as political age divide widens

Poll before upper house election reflects trends shaking global democracies

Japan's young people, who have grown up in a global and digital society, are taking the country's shift toward more diversity in stride. 

TOKYO -- An unusual generational divide is opening up in Japan's electorate, with young people far more likely to support Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government than their elders, opinion polling shows just ahead of the upper house election on July 21.

While 49% of voters aged 60 and up said they support Abe, according to a Nikkei survey conducted last month, the figure among citizens in their 20s reached 70%. In the early years of Abe's Liberal Democratic Party government, from 2012 to 2016, there was no significant difference between the two age groups, but since 2017 the gap has widened to more than 15 percentage points.

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