Research on political attitudes of young people
Just a warning, this post is based on a political poll, though Acronym remains an apolitical blog. I ran across the survey and thought other organizations who have as part of their missions the influence of policy would be interested in how 17-29 year olds answer several dozen political and policy questions. A PDF of the full results of the study conducted for The New York Times, CBS News, and MTV are available on the New York Times site, as well as other places.
Here are some of the results I found most interesting or are different than what I would have thought they'd be:
• 50 percent say their job opportunities are excellent or pretty good -- more than 15 percent more than three years ago.
• 56 percent say "the government in Washington cares about people of your generation" either a lot or some. Cynical me, I thought that number would be much lower.
• 58 percent say they have paid a lot or some attention to the 2008 presidential campaign. I realize the campaigns are in full swing and its great to be a political racehorse junkie right about now, but I didn't think anybody else was paying very much attention at this point.
• 48 percent say they expect to be worse off than their parents' generation -- 25 percent say they will be better off and 25 percent say they'll be the same. I'm just surprised the outlook is that pessimistic.
• 23 percent say the economy will be most important in determining who they vote for; only 20 percent say Iraq.
Another series of questions asked if government policies on specific issues were important. The issue with the most "very important" answers was trying "to reduce gas and oil use by consumers." The issue beat out such notable issues as "job training and job opportunities for younger workers" (a no-brainer high score based on who was being surveyed), "provide insurance coverage to people who don't have it," and "loans, grants, and student aid that helps pay for college."
Finally, since I am a bit of a political racehorse junkie, I have to slip in one political observation. It would appear that younger democrat-leaning people are more passionate about the leading presidential candidates than their republican-leaning counterparts. When asked if they are likely to vote for a Republican or Democratic candidate, they lean democratic 54 to 32 percent (that's a bit more left-leaning than all adults, which are split 49 to 33 percent according to a different recent survey). But when asked if they were enthusiastic about any of the candidates now running for president, Obama leads the list with 18 percent, followed by Clinton at 17 percent. The next name on the list is Giuliani, who is only backed enthusiastically by 4 percent.
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Comments
Scott,
I don't know if it's karma or coincidence, but I read your post and am responding during the Democratic presidential debate at Howard University.
The first thing that strikes me about this survey is the disconnect between the present and the future: 50% say current job opportunities are good to excellent,but 48% expect to be worse off than their parents. Or maybe that's just the other half who don't see good job prospects. As the parent of two in that cohort, I have to ask. Are we not doing enough to build a strong future for our children, or are we not instilling in them a strong faith in themselves to build a better world?
Second, I am surprised that the young people view the economy as more important than the war. When I was their age, the war (Vietnam) was everything to us. Of course, we faced an involuntary draft so that may have affected our feelings. Could it be that the rising generations are more interested in their own well-being than in global issues? Probably not uncommon among people that age of any generation. Or, more positively, perhaps they believe that if we can sustain global economic stability and growth, we can also reduce the incidence and severity of international conflict.
To bring this back to associations, the question becomes, what do these poll results tell us about the future leaders joining our associations and our staffs? And how do we incorporate these perceptions and beliefs into our planning and program development? I suspect that people's values and outlooks will be much more important than their social networking or Blackberry addiction in shaping the association of the future. This harkens back to Lisa Junker's post of May 31 and the several responses about hearing younger voices. I'd like to see the responses to the poll from some 17 to 29 year-old association staffers.
Overall, it gives me hope. If 17-29 year-olds view the present as positive, have faith in their government, are already politically aware, belive economic prosperity is more important than war, and are willing to work to improve the outlook, then we have a pretty bright future ahead of us!
Posted by: Wayne Carley | June 28, 2007 11:42 PM