This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Lovers of regulation, supporters of same-sex couples and very liberal when it comes to abortion – this is how a sample of a thousand Australians perceive themselves.

Australia is a country that accepts gay couples, hates the big banks, considers second-generation migrants “Australian”, but the majority feel negatively towards Islam.

New wide-ranging data released by YouGov has revealed fascinating insights into the Australian identity, its place in the world, and its many contradictions.

Australians were the second-highest out of 23 countries surveyed in not considering where someone’s parents come from as relevant to identifying as Australian, but in our personal lives, 47% admitted to having “very few” or no close friends of a different ethnic background. And 80% of us believe women still suffer discrimination, but a third also think the women’s rights movement has gone too far.

Almost half of Australians believe immigration should be reduced, poll finds Read more

Older Australians, perhaps surprisingly, are just as supportive of gender equality as their younger counterparts. In some cases, more so. But generational fault lines opened up over same-sex relationships (those under 45 vs over 45) and the acceptance of transgender Australians (under 35 and over 35).

Q&A What is the YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project? Show Hide The project is a new annual survey of global attitudes in 23 of the world's biggest countries, covering almost 5 billion people.

The 2019 survey canvassed 25,325 people online across much of Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia in February and March.

Questions about populist attitudes and convictions were inserted in order to derive a "populist cohort", and discover what this group of people think about major world issues from immigration to vaccination, social media and globalisation. The full methodology can be found here.

Across 1,006 Australians, and thousands more around the world, the YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project has already shed light on Australians’ sentiments towards immigration and our institutions. Here are some of its other insights:

Islam and other religions

51% of Australians had unfavourable sentiments towards Islam, and only 10% looked upon the religion positively, making Australia more negative than 17 of the other 22 countries surveyed.

In fact, 37% of people said they were “very unfavourable”– the most negative response available. This was far higher than the milder option of “fairly unfavourable” (14%), and made it the single most common response to the religion. 23% of people were neutral.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The poll found only 10% looked upon Islam positively, making Australia more negative than 17 of the other 22 countries surveyed. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

In comparison, 45% of Australians were positive towards Christianity, and 21% were negative.

Judaism had a favourability rating of 18%, and unfavourability of 20%. The largest segment was “neither favourable nor unfavourable” and “don’t know” – which added to 58%.

Age was one of the biggest factors that correlated with anti-Islam sentiment.

Those aged 45 and over had negative sentiments above 60%, and positive sentiments at 5% or lower. Those between 25 and 34 had negative sentiments 30 points lower (31%), and positive sentiments at 20%. Those 18-24 had similarly high positivity, but higher negativity too (at 41%).

Diversity of friends

Almost half of Australians said they had “very few” or “no” close friends from a different ethnic background. 22% said they had none, and 25% said they had very few.

That number changed when it was widened to include “broad friendship group”, but 24% of Australians still said they had “very few” friends who were different from them, even broadly.

Despite the high figures, this was actually better than many other countries. Australians had lower rates among the “none” and “very few” categories, and higher rates in the “about half” and “less than half” for their broad friends.

Unsurprisingly, this correlated with more negative views on globalisation. Of the people who thought globalisation negatively affected their standard of living and had increased crime, 33% and 32% respectively said they had very few broad friends of different backgrounds (10 points higher than the national average).

However, this result could have been skewed slightly by the fact that Anglo-Australians were overrepresented in the survey’s sample.

85% of those surveyed said English alone was their first language. While the Australian census does not record first language exactly, it records what languages people speak at home, and in 2016, only 72.7% of the population spoke English and no other languages.

National identity

Australians are very reluctant to identify with their geographic region.

While some in France identify strongly as European, Australians are more likely to identify as a “citizen of the world”, before they identify as a member of the Asia-Pacific.

71% of Australians said being from their state or territory was important to their identity, and 84% said being from Australia was important, but only 42% said being from “the wider international region where I live (e.g. Pacific Asia)” was important. 59% said being “a citizen of the world” was important to their identity.

But as for what makes someone Australian, Australians seemed to reflect migrant identities. We are world leaders in not caring whether somebody was born in Australia, or had parents born in Australia.

When asked what makes someone “truly” Australian, only 54% of the country believed it was important to have been born in Australia, whereas 45% thought it wasn’t. 34% thought it was important that both parents were born in Australia, but the majority – 64% – said it didn’t matter. The figures were similar for having at least one parent born in Australia.

Australia was one of the highest for these measures. Of all countries surveyed, Australia were second in the world for not caring – beaten only by Sweden.

However, we were more similar to other countries when it came to the importance of being a citizen (88% agree) and speaking the language (78%).

Gender equality

80% of Australians think there is still some discrimination against women. However, 14% said women experienced no discrimination at all, and 33% of those surveyed believed the women’s rights movement had gone too far.

64% of Australians believe abortion is acceptable (nearly 20 percentage points higher than the rest of the world), 77% believe having a baby outside of marriage is acceptable, and 47% said they have a favourable opinion of the MeToo movement – compared with 23% unfavourable.

Views on these questions shifted with political affiliation. There was a huge spike in disapproval in even the most centrist rightwing categories, not just the fringes.

34% of those in the political centre thought women’s rights had gone too far – close to the national figure. That jumped to 56% in the “slightly right of centre” category. By comparison, the “slightly left of centre” category stayed at 34%.

This was reflected in the major parties, which sharply diverged on the women’s movement.

What is the Guardian YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project? Read more

Half (49%) of Coalition voters thought the women’s rights movement had gone too far, compared with only a quarter (27%) of Labor voters.

Finally, support for abortion was incredibly consistent. Men and women had exactly the same approval level (64%).

Interestingly, approval was the same across the major parties too. In fact, both Coalition had Labor voters approved of abortion more than the national figure. This is because high disapproval ratings in the “other” voter category, and those who did not vote or couldn’t remember, brought down the national percentage.

LGBTIQ

67% of Australians believe it is acceptable to have a same-sex relationship, and 50% believe it is acceptable for someone to identify as a different gender to the one they were assigned at birth.

But unlike gender equality, age had a stark effect. Australians were very supportive of same-sex relationships up until age 55 and over, where support sharply dropped to 57% – compared with 70% of those aged 45-54.

For acceptance of being transgender, that age divide came either side of 35. Those under 35 had a 62% approval rate, those older a 46% rate or lower.

Globally, Australians were more accepting of same-sex couples than 13 other countries, but scored lower than eight, with Denmark leading the countries surveyed at 80%.

Regulation

Australians want more regulation for nearly every industry in the country – from big banks to social media companies to pharmaceuticals.

73% want more regulation of the banks, and 57% want more regulation of social media. Only small businesses escaped the Australian desire for more oversight (17%).

Young Australians (18-24) had a marginally lower desire for the regulation of social media companies, and a lower desire to regulate banks.