Younger Canadians hold more negative views about religious groups – CRRF
2014/05/30 Leave a comment
Further to an earlier release of the CRRF and ACS Survey on Religion, Racism and Intergroup Relations in Canada Shows Differences in Attitudes Among Anglophones, Francophones and Other Groups, a further release pertaining to attitudes to religious diversity by age group. Remarkably consistent across religions, except for Muslims:
| Table 1: Negative attitudes towards certain groups, according to age groups | ||||||
| Negative Opinion |
Total |
18-24 |
25-34 |
35-44 |
45-54 |
55-64 |
| Muslims | 44% | 43% | 45% | 40% | 43% | 40% |
| Jews | 19% | 24% | 25% | 20% | 15% | 15% |
| Protestants | 15% | 24% | 23% | 14% | 15% | 8% |
| Catholics | 19% | 25% | 25% | 22% | 18% | 13% |
| Atheists/Agnostics | 21% | 14% | 18% | 21% | 21% | 22% |
| Religious | 31% | 36% | 33% | 31% | 31% | 27% |
| Immigrants | 24% | 24% | 27% | 24% | 30% | 16% |
| Aboriginals | 26% | 26% | 26% | 25% | 29% | 22% |
Younger Canadians hold more negative views about religious groups
Whereas on diversity in general, young people are more supportive than older age groups, as another relatively recent study by ACS shows:
| Do you have a very positive, somewhat positive, somewhat negative or very negative opinion of Canadian Multicultural Policy | ||||||||||
| Total | 18-24 | 25-34 | 35-44 | 45-54 | 55-64 | 65 + | French | English | Other | |
| TOTAL positive | 58% | 74% | 61% | 61% | 56% | 54% | 47% | 48% | 60% | 67% |
| Very positive | 15% | 34% | 18% | 15% | 10% | 12% | 8% | 8% | 14% | 26% |
| Somewhat positive | 43% | 40% | 43% | 46% | 46% | 42% | 39% | 40% | 46% | 41% |
| TOTAL negative | 35% | 14% | 29% | 33% | 35% | 39% | 50% | 45% | 32% | 28% |
| Somewhat negative | 23% | 7% | 19% | 24% | 25% | 25% | 33% | 29% | 22% | 18% |
| Very negative | 12% | 8% | 10% | 9% | 11% | 14% | 17% | 16% | 10% | 11% |
| I prefer not answering | 7% | 11% | 10% | 6% | 9% | 7% | 3% | 7% | 8% | 5% |
Younger Canadians Believe Multiculturalism Works; Older Canadians, Not So Sure
I expect a further breakdown by region (urban vs rural, QC vs ROC), cross-referenced to more broad-based attitude polling, may cast more light, or it may simply reflect that younger people, in general, may be less religious.
No surprise, and consistent with other surveys, distrust of Muslims is higher than other religions (they did not ask about Sikhs which generally “rate” between Muslims and other religions). There may be a link between the categories “religious” and Muslims, given perceptions of more religious fundamentalism or conservatism.
Like all polling, one question leads to another …
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