A large global survey released yesterday showed a surge in despair and disillusionment with established politics, particularly among young American men, the only US population group to turn more conservative over the past decade.
The study by the international research agency Glocalities offered context for November’s US presidential poll and a plethora of votes worldwide, including an EU parliamentary election in June.
It surveyed respondents to determine their position on a scale on a scale of optimism between “hope” and “despair,” and on another between “control” and “freedom” — in other words, conservatism and liberalism.
On average, the world became more liberal from 2014 to last year, even as it became more pessimistic, according to more than 300,000 surveys in 20 countries representing nearly 60 percent of the global population.
Young people the world over feel especially let down by society, Glocalities head of research Martijn Lampert said, adding that “the surge in despair among young adults in the US far outweighs the rise in despair among young adults in EU countries.”
Most strikingly, young US men were the only population group in the US or even seven EU member states to have become more conservative since 2014 — or, in the poll’s terms, to favor more control rather than freedom.
In total, 14,526 Americans were polled from 2014 to last year, including 2,242 men aged 18 to 34.
Worldwide, “feelings of hopelessness, societal disillusionment and rebelling against cosmopolitan values partly explain the rise of radical right anti-establishment parties,” Lampert said, citing elections in several European countries.
Social media algorithms were magnifying the trend by drawing “moderately conservative young men towards more extreme and radical conservative male role models and world views,” the report said.
The report also highlighted a sharp difference between the world’s young men and young women.
Both were worried about career prospects, financial security and education, but while men aged 18 to 24 overtook men aged 55 to 70 as the most socially conservative group, women aged 18 to 24 grew more liberal and anti-patriarchal.
On a scale where 1 represents the most conservative and 5 the most liberal, women worldwide aged 18 to 24 moved from 3.55 in 2014 to 3.78 last year — both easily the highest for any age group.
Men of the same age moved from 3.29 to 3.36. And in the US, men aged 18 to 34 became less liberal, dropping from 3.48 to 3.46.
“Globally, young women are likely the most liberal group in human history,” the report said.
Young women were worried above all about social issues such as sexual harassment, domestic violence, child abuse and neglect.
Young men were more geared toward achieving social and economic status, and set store by conservative family values and competition, bravery and honor.
If the report offered a glimmer of optimism, it was among the world’s men and women over 55, the only groups to become generally more hopeful over the decade, as well as more liberal.
Respondents were asked 43 questions to assess where they ranked. To gauge social values, Glocalities assessed their views about patriarchy, gender role flexibility, same-sex marriage and cohabitation before marriage.
The measurement of sentiment focused on future prospects and feelings about being let down by society.
Surveys were conducted in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, the UK and the US.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver