Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Millennial values

From a US survey of 2,000 American adults under 30.

Millennials distrust political parties and are largely socially liberal but fiscally centrist, according to the latest Reason-Rupe survey. The survey gathered responses from 2,000 adults ages 18 to 29 between late February and mid-March 2014, finding that today's young Americans are largely unaligned with traditional political parties:
  • While young adults have supported Democrat political candidates since 2004, one-third of millennials identify themselves as independents -- three times the number of Americans over the age of 30 who do so.
  • Twenty-eight percent of millennials trust neither major party to handle the nation's issues. Fifty percent do not trust either party to handle privacy.
The survey also indicated that young American adults believe in personal responsibility and other free-market values. When asked to explain success, respondents listed hard work, ambition and self-discipline as the top three explanations for wealth. The most common explanations for poverty were poor life choices, lack of job opportunities and lack of work ethic.

Would love to see how a NZ survey compared.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

socially liberal but fiscally centrist

Well they'd be lost in NZ: there isn't a single fiscally centrist party! There isn't even a single party as far "right" as the US D'RATS, let alone the GOP or the Tea Party.

The most common explanations for poverty were poor life choices,

truth hurts.

Jigsaw said...

It always gives me hope in that no matter what the level of propaganda in schools and education generally, there always remains a healthy level of scepticism in society and in youth generally.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Do you have kids Jigsaw?

Mine have definitely survived the prevailing ideology. You can't teach (all) people what to think.