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Society and the Wider World

Society and the Wider World

CSO statistical publication, , 11am

This chapter explores how 25-year-olds perceived and engaged with the wider world. Highlights include:

  • Respondents expressed concern over many important social issues; 97.7% stated they were concerned (both somewhat and very) about housing in Ireland and 94.2% said they were concerned (both somewhat and very) with poverty in Ireland.
  • In the 12 months prior to survey, less than one in fifty (1.6%) had worked for a political party.
  • Nearly two-thirds of respondents (65.6%) said they had experiences of being discriminated against at least a few times a year.
  • Less than one in ten (7.7%) said they had been a victim of crime in the last two years.
  • Over half (56.4%) of respondents strongly agreed or agreed with the statement ‘I am optimistic about the future’.

Social Concerns

Participants were asked whether they were very concerned, somewhat concerned, or not at all concerned about the following issues: climate change; racism; gender inequality; animal rights; poverty in Ireland; employment opportunities in Ireland; housing in Ireland, and the global gap between rich and poor countries. The below section presents the figure for overall concern, which is the aggregate of somewhat concerned and very concerned, per issue.

The highest rate of concern was for housing: 97.7% (See Figure 6.1) of respondents were concerned (both somewhat and very) about this issue. More than eight in ten respondents (86.0%) were very concerned about this issue. Nearly nineteen out of twenty respondents (94.2%) cited poverty in Ireland as a matter of concern. Climate change was of concern to 85.1% of respondents. The level of concern about the global gap between rich and poor was 83.8%; women (88.7%) were more concerned about this issue than men (78.8%). The lowest concern rate was for gender inequality (77.3%) although there was a sex divide when it came to the responses. Women were more concerned about gender inequality than men (88.4% compared with 65.9%).

Figure 6.1 Major social concerns of respondents aged 25

Figure 6.1 Aggregate concern score calculated from 'somewhat concerned' and 'very concerned'

Political Engagement

This section explores the landscape of political interest and political engagement among Cohort '98 at age 25. Respondents were asked to provide a score on a scale of zero to ten where zero meant that they were not at all interested in politics and ten meant that they were very interested in politics. The weighted mean of all respondents was 4.1; men were more interested in politics scoring an average of 4.6 compared with an average score for women of 3.6 (See Table 6.1).

Level of educational achievement was a factor in the score for political interest. Men who had an NFQ Level 7 or higher qualification scored 5.2 on average which was higher than men who had an NFQ Level 6 qualification (average score of 3.9). Women who were educated to an NFQ Level 7 qualification scored higher at 4.1 than women who were educated to an NFQ Level 6 qualification or below, at 2.8.

Around one in five (19.9%) respondents scored zero on this scale – which indicated no interest in politics – while less than five out of every 100 respondents (4.8%) gave a score of ten which indicated a strong interest in politics.

Table 6.1 Interest in politics of respondents aged 25

Participants were asked if they had taken part in any of the following political activities in the previous 12 months: Contacted a politician or councillor; worked for a political party; worked with an environmental group; worn or displayed a campaign badge or sticker; signed a petition about a political or social issue; took part in a public demonstration; boycotted products for political, social or environmental reasons, and posted or shared anything about politics online. 

More than half of the respondents (51.1%) said they had not engaged in any political activity in the past year (See Figure 6.2). Men (55.2%) reported higher levels of non-engagement compared with women (47.1%). Just over six in ten (60.1%) men without an NFQ Level 7 qualification or higher stated they had not participated in any form of political activity in the past year.

Where respondents had engaged in political activity, the most popular political activity was to sign a petition; 30% of respondents had done this in the last year. Almost two in ten (19.8%) respondents said they had posted or shared something about politics online, and 18.6% said they had boycotted certain products for political, social, or environmental reasons. 

Less than one in ten respondents (8.6%) had contacted a politician or councillor while only 1.6% had worked for a political party.

Figure 6.2 Political engagements in the past year for respondents aged 25 years

Experience of Discrimination

The Everyday Discrimination Scale (EDS) can assess subtle forms of discrimination that individuals experience in their daily lives (See Background Notes for more information).

Respondents were asked whether they had experienced discrimination and how regularly in the following domains: Whether they had been treated with less respect or courtesy than others; whether they had received poorer service in restaurants or stores; whether people had acted as if they were not smart; whether people had acted as if they were afraid of them, and whether they had been threatened or harassed.

Over six in ten (65.6%) respondents stated they had felt discriminated against in at least one of these metrics at least a few times a year (See Table 6.2).

This was more common among women. Nearly seven in ten (69%) women stated they had regularly felt discriminated against according to these categories compared with 62.1% of men. The most common reported form of discrimination for respondents was they had been treated with less respect or courtesy than others (53.3%) followed by people acting as though they were not smart (42.1%). Women (46.7%) said they had experienced people acting as though they (the respondent) were not smart, at higher rates compared with men (37.2%). Women (24.6%) said they had been threatened or harassed more frequently than men (17.8%). Men had experienced people acting as if they were afraid of them more frequently than women; 18.1% of men had experienced this at least a few times a year compared with 11.4% of women.

Table 6.2 Experience of discrimination for respondents aged 25 years

Respondents were asked what they thought was the reason for their experience of discrimination, they could choose as many items as they wanted from a list. For those who stated they had experienced discrimination, gender was the most common reason selected (see Figure 6.3). Two in five (40.2%) women in the survey said they had experienced discrimination on account of their gender, compared with just over one in ten (12.1%) men. 

Age was the second most common reason respondents believed explained their experiences of discrimination at 21.7%. More women (27.1%) stated they had felt discriminated against regularly because of their age compared with men (16.1%).  

The next most common reasons cited for discrimination were physical appearance other than height and weight (13.3%), weight (8.5%), accent (8.4%), and education or income level (8.2%). There was little difference between men and women on reported discrimination on these grounds. 

Respondents so infrequently mentioned discrimination on religious grounds that these figures could not be included in the chart.

Figure 6.3 Type of discrimination as experienced by respondents aged 25

Victim of Crime

Respondents were asked if they had been a victim of a crime in the two years prior to the survey.  

Crimes included home or car broken into, theft, assault, cybercrime or internet fraud, and someone posting or threatening to post upsetting or very personal information about yourself online. 

Less than one in ten (7.7%) respondents said they had been a victim of such a crime at least once in the past two years (See Table 6.3).

Table 6.3 Respondents experience of crime in the past 2 years

Life Satisfaction and Optimism for the Future

Respondents were asked to describe how satisfied they were with their own life in general on a scale of zero to ten, with zero meaning that they were not at all satisfied with their life in general and ten meaning that they were very satisfied with their life in general. The average score was 6.5; men scored on average 6.6 and women scored on average 6.5.  

Respondents with an educational qualification of an NFQ Level 7 or higher had an average life satisfaction score of 6.8 compared with those without such a qualification (6.1). Women without an NFQ Level 7 or higher qualification had a relatively low life satisfaction score at 6.0 while women with such qualifications scored 6.9 (see Table 6.4).

Table 6.4 Life satisfaction of respondents aged 25 years by educational attainment

Respondents whose principal economic status was employed had an average life satisfaction score of 6.7, while those who said they were not in employment, education, or training gave a lower life satisfaction score of 5.5 (see Table 6.5).

Table 6.5 Life satisfaction of respondents aged 25 years by employment status

Respondents who had moved out of their parental home scored 6.9 for life satisfaction compared with 6.4 for those who were still living at home. This difference was most marked in men with those living outside their parents’ home recording an average life satisfaction score of 7.1 while men who lived with their parents scored an average of 6.4 (See Table 6.6).

Table 6.6 Life satisfaction of respondents aged 25 years whether or not they were residing with parents

Respondents who took part in the GUI Cohort '98 at age 25 survey were optimistic about the future (See Figure 6.4). Over half (56.4%) of respondents said they either strongly agreed or agreed when asked if they were optimistic about the future. Almost one in five (19.6%) strongly agreed and over one-third (36.9%) agreed with the statement. Just over one in ten (10.7%) either disagreed or strongly disagreed.

Figure 6.4 Level to which 25-year-olds agreed about feeling optimistic for the future

Respondents with an NFQ Level 6 or below qualification tended to be more ambivalent about, and less in agreement with, the statement, reflecting differences in optimism about the future for these individuals.  

Those who had an NFQ Level 6 or below qualification less often agreed or strongly agreed with the statement (49.6% compared to 61.3% for those with an NFQ Level 7 or higher qualification). Respondents with an NFQ Level 6 or below qualification more often neither agreed nor disagreed with the statement (23.2% compared with 15.2% for those with an NFQ Level 7 or higher qualification).