Dimensions of Religious Prejudice

Posted on November 24, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Two reports have been published in the last couple of days which shed light on the scale of religious prejudice in contemporary society:

Religious discrimination in the European Union

Discrimination on the grounds of religion or beliefs is perceived as more pervasive in the UK than in many other European countries. One-half of UK adults say that it is very or fairly widespread here, 5% more than when the question was last asked in 2009. The figure is well above the European Union (EU) average of 39% and only exceeded by five other EU countries (peaking in France on 66%). The proportion falls to 38% (compared with the EU average of 33%) when confined to discrimination outside the workplace, with 14% contending that insufficient is being done to advance religious diversity at work. Three in ten regard the economic recession as a contributory factor in the increase in discrimination in the labour market based on religion or beliefs.

At the same time, only 3% of UK citizens say that they felt personally discriminated against or harassed on the basis of religion or beliefs during the previous twelve months, although more (10%) claim to have witnessed or heard of somebody suffering such treatment in the same period. Friends and acquaintances across the religion or belief divide are reported by 84% in the UK, up by 5% since 2009 and 17% above the EU average. However, some 13% still feel uncomfortable at the prospect of a member of a minority religion being elected as prime minister, albeit a decrease on 21% in 2009 and lower than the EU norm, while 15% consider that wearing a visible religious symbol could put an employment candidate at a potential disadvantage.

A background question on religious affiliation revealed that 32% of UK citizens describe themselves as atheists or agnostics, 2% more than two years ago, and 9% more than in all EU nations combined (the country range being from zero in Cyprus and Romania to 59% in the Czech Republic). Of the remainder of UK adults, 15% are categorized as Catholic, 1% as Orthodox, 23% as Protestant, 19% as other Christian, 6% as non-Christian, 2% of another religion, and 2% undecided.   

Source: Face-to-face interviews with 1,301 adults aged 15 and over in the UK, conducted by TNS UK between 2 and 17 June 2012 as part of wave 77.4 of Eurobarometer, and on behalf of the European Commission. Interviews were also carried out in the other 26 member states of the EU. Topline analysis of the survey can be found in Discrimination in the EU in 2012, Special Eurobarometer Report 393, published on 22 November 2012 and available to download at:

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb_special_399_380_en.htm#393

BRIN’s coverage of the European Commission’s 2009 discrimination survey can still be read at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2010/religious-discrimination-in-the-european-union/

Religiously aggravated offending in Scotland

There was an increase of 26% in the number of charges with a religious aggravation recorded in Scotland in 2011-12 compared with 2010-11. The rise is thought to be partly attributable to greater awareness and reporting of such crimes. The main charges were breach of the peace (42%) and threatening or abusive behaviour (47%). Court proceedings were initiated in 88% of charges, some of which were ongoing at the end of 2011-12. In cases which were concluded and resulted in a conviction, punishments comprised fines (43%), community penalty (22%), and custodial sentences (20%), with 15% classified as other (such as a warning).

Two-fifths of all charges were in the city of Glasgow (albeit down from 51% in 2010-11), with 10% in North Lanarkshire. The overwhelming majority (93%) of the accused were men, and 58% were aged between 16 and 30, with 35% aged 31-50. In 57% of cases the offences were judged to be alcohol-related, 9% drug-related, and 31% football-related. Roman Catholics were the targets of abuse in 58% of charges and Protestants in 40%. Relatively few offences, 2% each, were derogatory of Islam (19 out of 876) or Judaism (14). Police officers were the most common victims (51%), with a community rather than individual abused in 30% of instances.

Source: Analysis of 876 charges with a religious aggravation brought by police in Scotland in the financial year 2011-12 under Section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003. Summarized in Amy Goulding and Ben Cavanagh, Religiously Aggravated Offending in Scotland, 2011-12, published by Scottish Government Social Research on 23 November 2012, and available to download from:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0040/00408745.pdf

 

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God Trumped by Aliens – and Other News

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Clive D. Field

God Trumped by Aliens

More people believe in the existence of life on other planets (53%) than believe in God (44%, which is a lower proportion than in other polls, possibly explained by a difference in question-wording). Only Northern Ireland bucks the trend; here belief in aliens stands at 30%. One-fifth think unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have landed on earth, and one-tenth claim to have seen one (more so among men than women). A staggering 52% contend that evidence of UFOs has been covered up in order not to compromise the stability of government.

Source: Survey by Opinion Matters conducted online among a representative sample of 1,359 UK adults, and on behalf of 2k Games, publishers of the new alien-themed videogame XCOM: Enemy Unknown, where the task is to save the world from enemy invasion. Full data are not in the public domain (although BRIN has requested them), and details for this post have been taken from coverage in various online media following the launch of the product on 12 October.

Religion and Ageing

Religious affiliation remains at a relatively high level among the over-50s, although (as with most religious indicators) it is greater among women (89%) than men (79%). There is also variation by age, the proportion with no religion falling steadily from the 55-59 cohort (27% of men and 20% of women) to those aged 80 and over (13% and 5% respectively). Wealth likewise makes a difference, both men and women in the lower wealth groups being more likely to espouse a religion than those in higher wealth groups; in the highest wealth group the number with no religion stands at 27% of men and 17% of women. The religion reported is overwhelmingly Christian, with non-Christians amounting to only 3% of older men and 2% of women.

Moreover, those over-50s who actively practise their faith by attending religious services have somewhat enhanced levels of psychological well-being compared with those who never attend worship. This effect, which is statistically significant, is reflected in ‘less depression, greater affective well-being, higher eudemonic well-being and greater life satisfaction’. Frequency of attendance (‘“dose-response” effects’) is not necessarily material: ‘participants who reported attending religious services a few times a year had similar levels of psychological well-being on several measures to those who were regular attenders’. In the case of life satisfaction, mean scores are 19.8 for non-attenders, 20.9 for those worshipping a few times a year, and 21.4 for those attending two or three times a month or more often.

Source: Wave 5 of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), in which 10,274 English adults aged 52 and over were surveyed by NatCen between July 2010 and June 2011, through a combination of face-to-face interview and self-completion questionnaire. The dataset is available at the Economic and Social Data Service as SN 5050. The report, The Dynamics of Ageing, edited by James Banks, James Nazroo and Andrew Steptoe, was published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies on 15 October 2012. Tables 4A.81-85 (pp. 175-7) and S3a-b (p. 271) are especially relevant for BRIN users. The document can be downloaded from: 

http://www.ifs.org.uk/elsa/report12/elsaW5-1.pdf

Challenges to the Christian Journey

Male and female Christians face somewhat different challenges in their faith journey, according to a recent poll of regular churchgoers. For men the top six (out of thirteen) hurdles are perceived to be: societal pressure to behave in certain ways (50%), work-life balance (47%), pornography (39%), financial pressures (38%), integrity in the workplace (36%), and materialism (35%). For women the greatest challenge is considered to be family life problems (54%, 22% more than is thought to affect men), followed by work-life balance (51%), societal pressure to behave in certain ways (50%), media portrayal of women (45% – twice the difficulty of media portrayal of men), materialism (30%), and sexual pressures (27%).

Pornography comes last on the list of challenges said to be faced by women; at 3%, it is deemed to be an insignificant problem compared with the thirteen-fold greater temptation for Christian men. Interestingly, more male churchgoers (43%) than female (34%) think pornography is an issue for men, although there is an even greater difference by age, 62% of the 18-34s citing pornography as a male problem against 25% of the over-65s. Denominationally, members of New Churches (63%) and Pentecostals (48%) are most exercised by the snare of pornography for men, albeit the sub-samples are small. Pornography causes far more angst than alcohol and drugs, the latter combination said by 15% to be a challenge for men and 6% for women.

Source: Online survey of 510 churchgoing Christians in the UK, conducted by ComRes for Premier Christian Media via Cpanel between 14 and 28 September 2012. Full data tables published on 23 October at: 

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/Premier_Men_and_Women_Christian_Journey_04Oct2012.pdf

Halloween

There are signs that the commercialization of Halloween, the curious hybrid of paganism and a Christian feast of the dead (All Hallows’ Eve, on 31 October), may have peaked. Despite the best (and hitherto very successful) efforts of the superstore chains to manufacture a Halloween market, its value may have dipped this year. It is anticipated that UK consumers will spend £268 million on Halloween-related products in 2012 (including £78 million on dressing up), which is less than Planet Retail’s estimates of the size of the Halloween market in 2011 (£315 million) and 2010 (£280 million). The biggest spenders on Halloween are younger adults and those with families.

Although 53% of UK adults agree that Halloween is a ‘fun event for kids’, 45% dismiss it as an ‘unwelcome American cultural import’ and 33% fail to see the funny side of trick or treating. Only 23% claim that they will participate in a Halloween activity in 2012, 6% fewer than expect to take part in a Bonfire Night event. In terms of specific Halloween activities, 4% of adults plan to go trick or treating with children, 7% to dress up their children, 6% to dress up themselves, 7% to attend a party, 4% to host a party, and 8% to carve a pumpkin. Pumpkin-carving is forecast to be down significantly in 2012, doubtless because prices of the fruit have risen as a consequence of the poor weather.

Source: Online survey by YouGov among 2,167 UK adults aged 16 and over, undertaken between 1 and 8 October 2012. Part of a business intelligence report on Halloween and Bonfire Night by YouGov’s Sixth Sense arm, which costs £1,750. This is a bit beyond the means of BRIN, so we have been unable to view the full data. However, there was a press release on 24 October about the research, and that is freely available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/x6n5fpfblc/Bonfire%20Night%20Halloween%20press%20release.pdf

 

 

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Anglican Themes – and Funeral Hymns

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Clive D. Field

The cluster of news stories which have come to hand within the last four days mainly concern the Church of England, but a couple are also of wider interest:

Church of England Growth?

The Church of England launched a new website on 2 October 2012 as a showcase for its 18-month Church Growth Support Programme, which is exploring the factors relating to the spiritual and, particularly, numerical growth of the Church. A team from the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex, led by Professor David Voas (co-director of BRIN), has been appointed to undertake the data analysis and church-profiling strands of the research. In addition to being able to track the progress of these and the other two strands, the website incorporates several other valuable features, albeit still under development, including: key Anglican statistics; guide to church growth literature; case studies of growing churches; and an interactive discussion board on church growth issues. The site can be accessed at:

http://www.churchgrowthresearch.org.uk/

Or Church of England Decline?

A hitherto little-reported aspect of the Church of England’s General Synod in July 2012 was part of a speech by Andreas Whittam Smith, First Church Estates’ Commissioner, touching on the adverse demography of the Church of England. On the assumption that the ageing of Anglican congregations continues, he forecast that the number of worshippers could fall to as little as 125,000 in 2057, unless corrective action could be taken. The story has been picked up by Peter Brierley, in articles in FutureFirst, No. 23, October 2012, p. 5 and in The Church of England Newspaper, 14 October 2012, p. E1. Projecting Anglican attendance figures forward on the basis of what is known of the age profiles of Sunday worshippers from the various English church censuses, Brierley’s charts also point to what some might term a ‘doomsday scenario’, with attenders under 30 years of age likely to decline by 80% between 2000 and 2030, compared with just one-quarter for the over-65s. On present trends, Brierley’s best estimates are that 300,000 will attend Anglican Sunday services by 2030 and 500,000 in an average week (Sunday and weekday combined). Under such circumstances, he suggests, some cathedrals might need to be ‘decommissioned’ and 9,000 of the current 16,000 churches could close.

Church of England Cathedrals

Brierley’s gloomy long-term prognostications for English cathedrals are somewhat at variance with the upbeat tone of Spiritual Capital: the Present and Future of English Cathedrals, which was prepared and published (on 12 October 2012) by Theos and the Grubb Institute, and commissioned by the Foundation for Church Leadership and the Association of English Cathedrals. The report is empirically underpinned by an online survey carried out by ComRes on 10-12 August 2012 among 1,749 English adults aged 18 and over, supplemented by local case studies of Canterbury, Durham, Lichfield, Leicester, Manchester, and Wells Cathedrals (comprising 1,933 quantitative and 257 qualitative interviews).

The national poll revealed that 27% of resident adults (i.e. excluding overseas visitors) claimed to have visited a Church of England cathedral at least once during the previous 12 months. This equates to 11,300,000 people, 20% more than the Church of England’s own estimate for visitors to its cathedrals in 2010, with the trend clearly downward since 2000 (this discrepancy is not commented on in the report). The profile of these self-identifying visitors is shown to be fairly broad in terms of standard demographics and religious background. Specifically, they include significant numbers of non-churchgoers, non-Christians, and those of no religion, thereby confirming that ‘cathedrals have a particular capacity to connect spiritually with those who are on or beyond the Christian “periphery”’ – hence the ‘spiritual capital’ of the title.

Of course, a contrary interpretation is that visitors often relate to the heritage and cultural functions of cathedrals as much as, if not more so, to their role as places of worship, and some of the ComRes poll evidence points in this direction. For example, only 13% disagreed with the statement that cathedrals are more of historical than spiritual importance, and 15% that they would go to one for its history and architecture rather than for any religious or spiritual experience. Likewise, just 17% would go to a cathedral to learn more about Christianity, and 22% for spiritual support. These reservations notwithstanding, Spiritual Capital can be recommended as an excellent source of data, not simply about visitor numbers, but about visitor motivations, experiences, and attitudes, together with wider reflections on the role of cathedrals in the Church and society. The report is at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/files/files/Reports/Spiritual%20Capital%2064pp%20-%20FINAL.pdf

and the full national polling data at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/files/files/Polling/Cathedrals%20Final%20Data%20PDF.pdf

Heritage Tourism

Despite the optimism of the Theos and Grubb Institute report, English cathedrals may actually have had a poor summer in terms of tourism, sharing in the general malaise of all leading visitor attractions caused by the prolonged wet weather and the disruptive effects of the Olympic Games. Figures released by the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) on 8 October 2012 indicated that the heritage and cathedrals group of attractions in London (among them, St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey) reported a fall of visitor numbers of 20% comparing May-August 2012 with May-August 2011, while the decline in the rest of England was 6%. Retail spend at these attractions also decreased, by 20% in London and 9% elsewhere in the country. ALVA’s press release is at:

http://www.alva.org.uk/images/assets/84741_851645_121009.pdf

Additional information will doubtless become available when Visit England publishes, next year, Visitor Attractions Trends in England, 2012. The 2011 survey, released in July 2012, included returns from 102 places of worship, recording aggregate details of admissions, revenue, marketing, services, and employment. This 2011 report is at:

http://www.visitengland.org/insight-statistics/major-tourism-surveys/attractions/index.aspx

English Religious Beliefs

The Theos and Grubb Institute research into English cathedrals, discussed above, also collected a range of religious data about the respondents in the ComRes national survey, seemingly in an attempt to link cathedrals with what the report describes as ‘emergent spiritualities’. These data naturally have independent value. The number of adults claiming to ‘belong’ to a religion was 64%, 39% being Anglicans (two-thirds of them over 45), 16% other Christians, and 9% non-Christians; this left 34% professing no religion (rising to 46% of the 18-24s). Claimed attendance at religious services once a month or more was 15%, almost certainly an exaggeration. Firm belief in God (‘I know God exists and I have no doubts about it’) stood at just 19%, with 42% classified as atheists or agnostics; the remaining 39% fell into three categories in the ‘middle ground’ (including those believing in a higher power but not God). Belief in God as a universal life force was 40%, compared with belief in a human soul (60%), life after death (41%), angels (35%), the Resurrection of Jesus (31%), and reincarnation (26%). The number holding all six beliefs was just 12%, peaking at 20% in London. These figures have reduced somewhat over time. For instance, in Gallup’s Television and Religion survey in England in December 1963-January 1964 atheists and agnostics numbered 14% and 50% then believed in life after death. Even the number believing in a soul has dropped from the high of around 70% which was reached in several polls in the 2000s. BRIN has some time series on religious beliefs at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/#ChangingBelief

Funeral Music

Hymns are gradually being squeezed out of the musicological repertoire at funerals, according to research published by Co-Operative Funeralcare on 15 October 2012, and based on a study of 30,000 funerals conducted by the company (the UK’s largest funeral director) during the past year. In 2005 hymns accounted for 41% of all funeral music requests, but the proportion in 2012 has been reduced to 30%, less than half that of pop music requests. The imbalance might have been even worse, were it not for the fact that one-quarter of funeral homes have had to refuse to play a piece of music on the grounds of taste, usually because clergy conducting the ceremony felt the choice inappropriate. The most popular hymns, in order of frequency of requests, are currently Abide with Me, The Lord is My Shepherd, and All Things Bright and Beautiful. Co-Operative’s press release is at:

http://funeralcarenews.co-operative.coop/branch-news/funeral-survey-charts-the-demise-of-popular-hymns.html

 

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August YouGov Polls on Political Issues

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Herewith a round-up of recent YouGov polls touching on the interaction of religion and politics.

‘Doing God’

The majority of Britons are keen to keep religion apart from politics, according to a study published on 13 September 2012. 81% affirmed that religious practice is a private matter, which should be separated from British politico-economic life; 76% agreed that religious leaders should not influence how people vote in elections; 71% disagreed that religious leaders should have influence over the decisions of Government; 66% disagreed that politicians who did not share respondents’ own religious beliefs should not run for public office; and 65% disagreed that Britain would be a better place if more religious leaders held public office. Fewer than one in ten took the opposite stance on all these measures, with the remainder neutral or undecided, albeit as many as 16% wanted Christianity to play a greater role in British politics. Asked how much influence religion already has in British politics, 53% opted for the mid-positions (3-6) on a scale of 0-10, with 10% uncertain. Doubtless, the results were informed by the fact that 53% of the sample (including 69% of 18-24s) did not regard themselves as belonging to any particular religion.

Source: YouGov survey for YouGov@Cambridge in which 2,027 adult Britons were interviewed online between 10 and 19 August 2012. Data tables available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/md6rf2qvws/Reputation%20UK%20Report_21-Aug-2012_F.pdf

The survey was also conducted in the United States, France, Germany, the Middle East and North Africa, Pakistan and China. The multinational topline data are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/yf07oalgnu/Reputation%20x-country%20Report_24-Aug-2012_F.pdf

Islamophobia

Political parties of the far right are likely to take comfort from a poll released on 17 September 2012 which suggested that Islamophobia is a potential vote-winner. As many as 37% of electors indicated that they were more likely to vote for a party that promised to reduce the number of Muslims and the presence of Islam in British society, compared with 23% who said that they would be less likely to vote for a party pursuing such an agenda and 31% that it would make no difference. Those more likely to vote for a party under these circumstances were especially numerous among Conservatives (50%), the over-60s (49%), manual workers (45%), and Northerners (42%). Those less likely to vote for such a party were concentrated among Liberal Democrats (52%), the 18-24s (42%), Scots (33%), the 25-39s (32%), Londoners (31%), and non-manual workers (30%).

Source: YouGov survey for the Extremis Project (Matthew Goodwin) in which 1,725 adult Britons were interviewed online between 19 and 20 August 2012. Data tables available at:

http://extremisproject.org/2012/09/extremis-projectyougov-data-and-results/

Sunday Trading after the Olympic and Paralympic Games (1)

44% of Britons favour the permanent abolition of the legislative restrictions on the Sunday trading hours of large shops, which were temporarily suspended for the eight weeks around the Olympic and Paralympic Games. This would allow such shops to open for as long as they choose. 37% wanted to see the normal restrictions (a maximum of six hours between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.) reactivated, while 11% argued for an even tighter regime, with a total ban on large stores opening on Sundays. Advocates of permanent abolition were particularly to be found in Scotland (66%), to which the law does not apply, in any case. The over-60s (17%) most desired a return to the ‘traditional Sunday’, pre-dating the Sunday Trading Act 1994, a time when large stores ordinarily could not open at all.

Source: YouGov survey for The Sunday Times in which 1,731 adult Britons were interviewed online between 23 and 24 August 2012. Data tables available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/sdx6k0u8c5/YG-Archives-Pol-ST-results-24-260812.pdf

Sunday Trading after the Olympic and Paralympic Games (2)

A similar number (45%) to the previous poll supported the permanent extension of Sunday trading hours after the summer Games, with 83% of them backing wholly unrestricted hours. 24% considered that such a move would boost the ailing UK economy, and 22% anticipated that they would shop more on Sunday if hours are liberalized. At the same time, although 82% were aware of the temporary relaxation in opening hours during the Games, only 24% of these overall (rising to 39% of 18-34s) had actually taken advantage of the change. 39% believed that the Government will eventually legislate to relax Sunday trading laws. 16% opposed shops being allowed to open at all on Sundays.

Source: YouGov survey for business law firm DWF in which 2,045 adult Britons were interviewed online between 24 and 27 August 2012. Summary findings only available in DWF press release of 7 September 2012 at:

http://www.dwf.co.uk/insight/dwf-press/shoppers-back-longer-sunday-hours

 

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British Social Attitudes, 2011

Posted on September 18, 2012 by Clive D. Field

The twenty-ninth report from the British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey was published by NatCen Social Research on 17 September 2012, less than a year after the completion of the fieldwork (June-November 2011) on which it is based.

As usual, the 2011 BSA was undertaken through a combination of face-to-face interviews and self-completion questionnaires with adult Britons aged 18 and over. The full sample comprised 3,311 individuals, albeit some questions were put only to sub-samples.

Edited by Alison Park, Elizabeth Clery, John Curtice, Miranda Phillips and David Utting, the book-length report on British Social Attitudes, 29 is available for free download from:

http://www.bsa-29.natcen.ac.uk/media/13421/bsa29_full_report.pdf

The annotated questionnaire for the survey can be found at:

http://www.bsa-29.natcen.ac.uk/media/11241/annotated_questionnaire_2011.pdf

Although the dataset is not yet available through the Economic and Social Data Service, the 2011 data have already been loaded into the British Social Attitudes Information System, through whose website weighted results for each question can be viewed, disaggregated by demographics. Go to:

http://www.britsocat.com/Home

There was no special module on religion in the 2011 survey, but several questions of potential interest to BRIN users were included.

Asked whether they regarded themselves as belonging to any particular religion, 44% of adults replied in the negative. This was a lower proportion than in 2010 (50%) but much higher than when the question had first been put in 1983 (31%). It also represented a big increase on the 17% of 2011 interviewees who had not been brought up in any religion, suggesting that very many relinquish faith on transition to adulthood.

The number professing no religion varied substantially by age, peaking among the 18-24s (65%) and falling steadily to 18% among the over-75s. The age differential also largely explains the high of 57% for the never married and the low of 25% for the widowed. Gender was likewise significant, with 51% of men against 39% of women having no faith.

Regionally, Wales (historically a heartland of Nonconformity) reported the greatest incidence of irreligion (58%) and Greater London (formerly renowned for its poor religious allegiance but now boosted by religiously-minded immigrants) one of the lowest (42%). The Midlands, another centre of immigration, recorded 41%.

Very regular (once a week or more) attendance at religious services (other than for rites of passage) was claimed by 14%, almost certainly an exaggeration, while 58% said that they never attended public worship, just a modest rise on 53% in 1991. The picture is complicated by the fact that this question was apparently answered by very many, albeit not all, of those professing no religion.

In fact, 13% of the irreligious stated that they sometimes attended religious services. Anglicans had the highest total non-attendance (56%), with Roman Catholics on 28%, other Christians on 39%, and non-Christians on 29%. Men (65%) were more likely never to attend than women (54%). Variation by age cohort was between 54% and 65%, by marital status between 56% and 64%, and by region between 54% and 65%.

Other questions explored attitudes to Muslims. In the main (face-to-face) questionnaire, randomly-chosen sub-samples were asked for their views on three groups of migrants to Britain (labour migrants, student migrants, and family reunion migrants) originating from various geographical contexts, one of them being ‘Muslim countries like Pakistan’. 

An analysis of the results is given in the chapter on immigration (pp. 26-44) by Robert Ford, Gareth Morrell and Anthony Heath, which appears in British Social Attitudes, 29, especially on pp. 35-40. In respect of Muslims, public opinion was found to be more nuanced than has usually been assumed yet there remained some underlying prejudice.

Regarding labour migration, while 61% said that Muslim professionals filling jobs was good for Britain, only 17% said the same about unskilled Muslim labourers and even fewer (10%) about the same group searching for work. This professional/unskilled split was generic, but net support for Muslim migrants still tended to be less than from East Europe. Indeed, on several measures of the economic and cultural impact of migration there was a clear net preference for East Europeans over Muslims.

A similar trend was evident for student migration. Although the public was much more well-disposed to student migrants in general with good grades than bad grades, regardless of region of origin, net support for students with good grades from Muslim countries was smaller than from the other three geographical clusters, and net opposition to student migrants with bad grades was slightly higher for those from Muslim countries than West Europe or East Asia.

The pattern was repeated for family reunion migration, with which the public is unhappy overall. At 57%, net opposition to migrants from Muslim countries bringing their family to live in Britain for three years was very much greater than for family reunion migration from West Europe. The disparity remained when the period of settlement was extended to ten years, albeit family reunion migration from Africa was then perceived somewhat more negatively than from Muslim countries. 

Version C of the self-completion questionnaire, put to one-third of the sample, explored another dimension of anti-Muslim prejudice, asking respondents how comfortable they would be if a close relative married or otherwise entered into a relationship with a person who grew up in a Muslim country. Answers were recorded on a scale running from 0 to 10.

23% of respondents were very uncomfortable (0 or 1) about this prospect and 22% very comfortable (9 0r 10). Least discomfort was felt by the 18-24s (10%) and Scots (14%). Most discomfort was manifested by the over-65s (including 38% for the 65-74s), with age also probably contributing to highs for those with no educational qualifications (44%) and the widowed (38%).

The 2011 BSA findings on religious affiliation were highlighted in the notes for editors section of a BBC press release on 12 September concerning the Corporation’s RE:THINK 2012 Religion and Ethics Festival, hosted in Salford recently.

In connection with the Festival, the BBC commissioned its own research from TNS BMRB among 585 16- to 24-year-olds, interviewed face-to-face between 15 and 21 August 2012.

Asked to rank the most important moral issue for them, having religious faith or beliefs featured in equal penultimate place in a list of eight options, scoring just 4% compared with 59% of the young who selected looking after family. Moreover, religion was considered the least important moral issue by 32% of respondents.

The BBC press release can be found at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2012/rethink-poll.html

 

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Summer Shorts

Posted on August 23, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Herewith a round-up of some recently-published religious statistics which may be of interest to BRIN readers:

Religious Affiliation

Asked whether they consider themselves to be a member of any religious group, 56% of adults reply Christian, 6% some other religion, and 36% none. The number professing no religion decreases steadily with age, from 52% among the 18-24s to 23% for the over-65s (73% of the latter claiming to be Christian). The biggest concentration of adherents of non-Christian faiths is to be found in London (12%) and with the 18-24s (10%).

Source: Populus poll for Insight PA, conducted online on 4-5 July 2012 among 2,117 Britons aged 18 and over. Data reported in table 41 at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/uploads/OmPrivate_Public.pdf

Older Giving

Slightly more than half (52%) of the UK’s over-65s were online in June 2012, 6% more than in March 2009, albeit still 30% below the average for all adults. This advent of the ‘silver surfer’ is proving financially advantageous to religious causes, even as the traditional church collection plate shows signs of drying up. In May 2012 the over-65s were more likely than average to prioritize charities related to cancer, old age and religion when it comes to their online giving, and less likely to support organizations dedicated to animals, foreign aid, and homelessness. Online contributions by the over-60s to religious causes rose by 171% between 2007 and 2011, compared with 128% for all adults, although online donations to culture and the arts grew even faster (459% among the over-60s, 210% for the population as a whole).

Source: Infographic, compiled by JustGiving from multiple sources, and posted on its blog on 6 August 2012 at:

http://blog.justgiving.com/community/older-giving/

Superstitions

41% of adults describe themselves as superstitious (including 48% of the 18-24s and 45% of women), with 39% saying they are not superstitious at all. The most prevalent superstitious practices are: not walking underneath ladders (38%), touching wood (33%), not opening an umbrella indoors (27%), and crossing fingers (26%). 32% consider themselves as lucky, 27% have a lucky number, but just 6% have lucky underwear. Four leaf clovers (26%) and black cats (20%) are the most widely-regarded omens of good luck, and breaking a mirror (35%) and number 13 (20%) of bad luck. 8% fear 2013 may not be a good year for them because it contains the number 13 in the date.

Source: OnePoll online survey of 1,000 UK adults aged 18 and over in July 2012. OnePoll has kindly given BRIN sight of the full findings, but the only substantive public domain report to date appears to be the post from 20 July 2012 on OnePoll’s blog at:

http://news.onepoll.com/avoiding-walking-ladders-popular-superstition/

Same-Sex Marriage

The Coalition Government’s commitment to widen the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples is proving none too popular with churchgoing Christians, 58% of whom say they are less likely to vote Conservative as a result and 43% less likely to vote Liberal Democrat. Moreover, as a consequence of Government policy on the issue, 75% state their perceptions of Tory leader David Cameron have worsened and 65% report the same about LibDem leader Nick Clegg. 63% believe Cameron has been intolerant of the opposition to the plan and 54% that Clegg has failed to listen to public concerns about it. Three-fifths agree that ‘whether or not I would have voted for the Conservative or Liberal Democrat Parties, I will not do so under their current leaderships if they introduce this measure’. 79% are not persuaded by Government reassurances that places of worship would not be forced to conduct same-sex marriages, while 86% fear that, even if Government does provide an exemption along these lines, it could be overturned by the UK courts or European Court of Human Rights.

Source: Cpanel survey by ComRes for the Coalition for Marriage (C4M) in which 569 churchgoing Christians in the UK aged 18 and over were interviewed online between 26 June and 11 July 2012. Full data tables, including a wide range of breaks by demographics and religion, were posted on 22 August 2012 at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/C4M_full_data_tables_July_12.pdf

Newspaper coverage of the findings can be tracked via the C4M website under the entries for 18 and 19 August 2012 at:

http://c4m.org.uk/news/

Religious Studies GCSE Results, 2012

There were 239,123 candidates for the full course General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in Religious Studies (RS) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland during the summer of 2012, an increase of 7.7% over the 2011 figure (8.0% for male students and 7.5% for female). RS entries accounted for 4.6% of the total for all subjects (4.3% for males and 4.9% for females), up by 0.3% on the previous year. Entrants achieving grades of A*, A, B or C at RS were 73.7% (67.1% for males, 79.4% for females), 4.3% more than the average for all subjects. As well as the full course, there is a short course in RS, with 235,916 entries in 2012 (8.5% less than in summer 2011, 9.2% down for males and 7.7% for females). Candidates in RS comprised 63.5% of the total for all short courses, with 53.8% achieving grades of A*-C (46.0% for males and 61.5% for females).

Source: Results tables (which include disaggregations by country) published by the Joint Council for Qualifications, representing the seven largest providers of qualifications in the UK, on 23 August 2012 at:

http://www.jcq.org.uk/attachments/published/1727/GCSE%20Results%202012.pdf

 

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Faith and Death

Posted on July 22, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Although one-half of all Britons claimed not to belong to any religion in the latest (2010) British Social Attitudes Survey, 85% of the dying subscribe to some faith, according to a Government survey of their relatives published on 3 July 2012.

The First National VOICES Survey of Bereaved People: Key Findings Report was commissioned by the Department for Health, in line with the commitment made in the End of Life Care Strategy (2008). Fieldwork was undertaken by the Office for National Statistics.

A one in six sample of adult deaths was drawn from those registered in England between 1 November 2010 and 30 June 2011, and a self-completion postal questionnaire was sent to the bereaved informant in November 2011, 22,292 (46%) of whom responded.

The breakdown of ages of death was as follows: under 60 7%, 60-69 11%, 70-79 21%, 80-89 39%, 90 and above 23%. The concentration is inevitably in age cohorts which, in sample surveys of the living, tend to score quite highly on measures of religiosity.

Excluding nil or invalid responses, 15% of the deceased were reported by their relatives as having no religion, 83% as Christians, and 2% of other religions. The proportion of non-Christians is much less than in society as a whole, where they have a relatively youthful profile and thus a lower risk of death.  

Asked about the support which the bereaved had received from carers during the last two days of their life, spiritual support received the lowest rating (67% saying it had been excellent or good).

This compared with 80% for support to stay where the dying wanted to be, 79% for relief of pain, 74% for relief of other symptoms, and 71% for emotional support. 19% described the spiritual support as poor and 13% as merely fair.

The combined rating of excellent or good for spiritual support varied by cause of death. It was best (74%) in cases of cancer, with 63% for cardiovascular diseases, and 64% for other causes.

Place of death also made a vast difference to satisfaction with spiritual support: 91% for deaths in a hospice, 74% at home, 74% in a care home, but only 57% in a hospital. This finding could well fan the flames of debate about hospital chaplaincy.

Nevertheless, religious care seems to have been comparatively limited for patients who had been in their own home during the last three months of life. Just 4% of relatives mentioned help by religious leaders, against 20% by home care workers, 16% by nurses, 8% by social or support workers, and 7% by occupational therapists.

The First National VOICES Survey report is available at:

http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/files/2012/07/First-national-VOICES-survey-of-bereaved-people-key-findings-report-final.pdf

and Excel tables of data at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-266228

Other BRIN posts on religion and end-of-life care include:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2011/death-and-dying-in-eastern-england/

and

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2010/doctors-and-end-of-life-decisions/

 

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New Poll Findings

Posted on June 24, 2012 by Clive D. Field

There have been no substantive polls on religion in Britain during recent weeks, but here are a few findings from disparate surveys which BRIN has yet to report and which some of our readers may have missed:

Religious affiliation

56% to 58% of Britons consider themselves to be a ‘member’ of Christianity, and 7% to 9% of a non-Christian faith, while 32% to 33% claim they have no religion. 18-24s are most likely to say they have no religion (42% to 47%) and over-65s the least (20% to 24%). Non-Christians are most prevalent among the 18-34s and in London (where they form one-fifth of the population).

Source: Three Populus polls on (respectively) executive pay, the monarchy and the European Union commissioned by various clients, and undertaken online on 11-13 May, 25-28 May and 8-10 June 2012 among samples of approximately 2,000 adults aged 18 and over. Detailed statistics will be found in the classification section of the respective data tables at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/uploads/Populus%20Executive%20Pay_Shareholder%20Rights%20Results(1).pdf

http://www.populus.co.uk/uploads/May%202012%20monarchy.pdf

http://www.populus.co.uk/uploads/European%20Union%20Referendum%20Poll.pdf

Interfaith matters

Religious ignorance is an issue in the UK, according to 64% of Britons. In seeming confirmation of this, only 43% know that Christians, Jews and Muslims believe in the same God (dropping to 29% of the 18-24s, compared with 57% of over-65s). Less than one-third understand that Jesus is recognized as a major prophet in Islam, with almost half thinking this to be untrue. 51% (including 60% of 18-24s) admit to making an initial judgment of a person based on their religion.

Source: Populus poll of adult Britons aged 18 and over, conducted for the Maimonides Foundation. Headline results were published on 29 May 2012 and featured in Church Times (1 June), Jewish Chronicle (1 June), Church of England Newspaper (3 June), and Daily Telegraph (9 June). Full tabulations and methodological details have not yet been disclosed, but BRIN has requested them. 

Religious education

Of those expressing an opinion, 58% of Britons agree that it is beneficial for pupils to study religious education (RE) at school, and 53% want it to remain a compulsory subject. Among 18-24s, with the most recent direct experience of school RE, the figure rises to 63% in each case. Again excluding the don’t knows, 50% of all adults regard RE as an essential component of a multi-faith society, against 9% who see RE as harmful and 13% who think it should not be taught in schools at all.

Source: YouGov poll for the Religious Education Council (REC) of England and Wales, undertaken online among 1,825 adults aged 18 and over in England and Wales on 9-12 March 2012. The REC tells BRIN that full data will not be available until the autumn. Meanwhile, a press release from the REC – dated 11 June, and the basis of various print and online media coverage – can be found at:

http://www.religiouseducationcouncil.org/content/view/246/46/

Same-sex marriages

68% of Scots agree that religious organizations should have the right to decide for themselves whether or not to perform same-sex marriages, with 21% disagreeing and 10% uncertain. Agreement is higher among women (72%) than men (64%), the over-55s (72%) than the 18-24s (64%), and Conservative voters (76%) than Scottish Nationalists (64%).

Source: Ipsos MORI poll for the Equality Network, conducted by telephone among 1,003 Scottish adults aged 18 and over on 7-13 June 2012. A press release and charts were published on 17 June and are available at:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/2978/Majority-of-Scots-support-gay-marriage.aspx

 

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What Anglicans (and others) think about homosexuality and disestablishment

Posted on June 12, 2012 by Siobhan McAndrew

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earlier today, the Church of England responded to the Government’s proposals to introduce same-sex marriage. For further information, follow these links to coverage by BBC News, the Guardian, and the Telegraph; furthermore, the Church of England’s full response is available here.

In view of the discussion generated by the response, it is worth examining what Anglicans themselves think about gay relationships. My colleague Ben Clements at the University of Leicester has recently looked at data from the British Social Attitudes surveys and the European Values Surveys to see how attitudes to homosexual relationship have changed over the past three decades or so.

We recently published his full report here as part of our Figures section, which provides an array of statistics on attitudes to gay relationships, towards gay people, to adoption and other issues. To summarise:

  • In 1983, 70 per cent of Anglicans considered sexual relationships between people of the same sex were always or almost always wrong. By 2010, this had nearly halved to 37 per cent.
  • In 1983, 75 per cent of Catholics considered same sex relationships were always or almost always wrong; by 2010, this had fallen to 41 per cent.
  • In 1983, 80 per cent of Other Christians considered such rlationships wrong; by 2010, this had fallen to 47 per cent.
  • In 1983, 58 per cent of those with no religion considered such relationships wrong; by 2010, this had fallen to 21 per cent.

A specific question on the right to marriage was asked on the British Social Attitudes survey in 2007:

‘How much do you agree or disagree that … gay or lesbian couples should have the right to marry one another if they want to?’

Again, Ben broke the responses down by religious affiliation. There is some variation by religious affiliation, although note that age or ‘social generation’ effects may also be a key driver here: those of no religion are generally considerably younger than Anglicans. More complex analysis would be required to assess how far religious affiliation determines attitudes compared with other socio-demographic variables such as sex, education, socioeconomic status, and so forth.

 

Discussion today has also focused on the position of the Church of England as the established church. The Church of England argues that the proposals mean that the institution of marriage would be redefined in law to mean something the Church would ‘struggle to recognise’ as marriage:

‘the institution of marriage would have been redefined generally for the purposes of English law. At the very least that raises new and as yet unexplored questions about the implications for the current duties which English law imposes on clergy of the Established Church’ [Annex, paragraphs 21, 22].

Relatedly, Ben has also recently looked at attitudes to disestablishment of the Church of England. He analysed data from the British Election Study (BES) AV Referendum Study, undertaken in spring 2011, which included a number of questions regarding reform of British institutions. The full report is also available here in the Figures section.

The question on disestablishment, which was asked on the post-campaign survey wave, was:

 ‘The Church of England should keep its status as the official established church in England.’

The response options were: ‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’, ‘neither agree nor disagree’, ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’.

While the BES does not ask respondents their religious affiliation, we can break down responses by other demographics. To simplify, the ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’ response categories were collapsed. To summarise:

  • Overall, 54 per cent of respondents agreed the Church of England should remain the established church, 22 per cent neither agreed nor disagreed, 16 per cent disagreed (i.e. favoured disestablishment), and 8 per cent didn’t know.
  • Women are more in favour of the status quo than men ( 57 per cent of women agreed with the proposal compared with 50 per cent of men; 12 per cent disagreed compared with 19 per cent of men).
  • 54 per cent of Whites and 55 per cent of Black respondents are in favour of the status quo compared with 40 per cent of Asian respondents. However, the percentage disagreeing was similar for White and Asian respondents (16 and 15 per cent respectively) while that for Black respondents was 8 per cent – notably, 20 per cent of Asian respondents replied that they didn’t know.
  • There is some variation by age category. 63 per cent of those aged 65 and over favour the status quo compared with 41 per cent of those aged 18 to 24; 13 per cent of those aged 65 and over disagreed with the proposition (presumably, therefore, favouring disestablishment) compared with 19 per cent of those aged 18 to 24.
  • English respondents were more likely to support the Church of England continuing as the established church: 56 per cent agreed compared with 51 per cent in Wales, where the Anglican ‘Church in Wales’ was disestablished in 1920, and 31 per cent in Scotland (where the Church of Scotland is recognised as the national church but is not established). 15 per cent of English respondents disagreed, compared with 17 per cent of Welsh respondents, and 24 per cent of Scottish respondents.
  • Conservative Party supporters are more likely to favour continuing establishment: 69 per cent compared with 49 per cent of Labour supporters, 46 per cent of Lib Dems, and 45 per cent favouring no particular party. 8 per cent of Conservative Party supporters disagreed, thereby favouring disestablishment, compared with 19 per cent of Labour supporters, 25 per cent of Lib Dems, and 18 per cent of those favouring no particular party.
  • 74 per cent of Daily Mail readers favour the Church of England remaining established, compared with 65 per cent of Telegraph readers, 61 per cent of Sun readers, 52 per cent of Times readers, 36 per cent of Independent readers, and 28 per cent of Guardian readers.  7 per cent of Daily Mail readers favour disestablishment, compared with 13 percent of Telegraph readers, 7 per cent of Sun readers, 25 per cent of Times readers, 34 per cent of Independent readers, and 45 per cent of Guardian readers.

Again, the full reports and breakdowns are available in the Figures section via the drop-down menu, where the contact details for Ben are also available (although note that he is currently on paternity leave – congratulations Ben!).

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Far Right Britons

Posted on March 10, 2012 by Clive D. Field

The negativity of far right political parties, and particularly the British National Party (BNP), towards Islam and Muslims has been reaffirmed in a new report by academics at Nottingham and Salford Universities which was launched at Chatham House on 8 March 2012. Distributed by Searchlight Educational Trust, it is available online at:

http://www.channel4.com/media/c4-news/images/voting-to-violence%20(7).pdf

The research for Matthew Goodwin and Jocelyn Evans, From Voting to Violence? Far Right Extremism in Britain was funded by the British Academy. It is based on online interviews with 2,152 supporters of far right parties pre-screened from YouGov’s panel of 350,000 adults aged 18 and over. Fieldwork was presumably conducted in 2011.

Supporters exhibited a range of attachments to their parties: members, former members, identifiers, voters, and prospective voters. There were 485 supporters of the BNP (formed in 1982) in the sample, 1,505 of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP, 1993), and 210 of the English Defence League (EDL, 2009). Some support overlapped.

74% of BNP supporters and 46% of UKIP supporters cited immigration or Muslims as the most important issue facing Britain today, and a minority (22% and 8% respectively) even suggested that the position of Muslims already in British society was the most significant challenge faced by the country.

88% of BNP and 85% of UKIP supporters disagreed with the statement that Islam did not pose a serious danger to Western civilization; just 7% and 9% agreed. In the case of the BNP, core supporters (members and identifiers) felt more strongly about this than those on the periphery (voters or potential voters), but the distinction did not hold true for UKIP.

92% of BNP and 84% of UKIP followers said that they would be bothered by the prospect of a mosque being built in their community, considerably more than the 55% recorded by the British Social Attitudes Survey in 2008. Again, BNP’s core supporters were especially concerned.

Perhaps the most worrying finding of all was that 92% of BNP and 75% of UKIP supporters felt that violence between different ethnic, racial or religious groups in Britain is largely inevitable, with the core of both parties most likely to agree with this forecast.

Although far right parties often try to galvanize public hostility towards minorities by emphasizing Christian themes, respondents to this poll were not unduly religious relative to the population as a whole. The proportion professing no religion was 46% for BNP, 42% for EDL, and 39% for UKIP supporters. However, there were fewer non-Christians in the sample than the norm.

The number of EDL interviewees in this survey was small. Therefore, BRIN readers might like to be reminded of our coverage of another investigation of EDL supporters at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2011/inside-the-english-defence-league/

 

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