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What's Worrying Britain - Five Years On
29/6/01



The British public's concerns about education and unemployment have halved over the past five years, whilst the issue of immigration and race relations has shot up the rankings, according to a new MORI poll commissioned by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) that compares 1996 attitudes to those in 2001.

The survey follows up a similar 1996 MORI poll assessing the domestic and international social concerns of the general public in 13 European countries. The research is part of the ongoing European "Face to Face'" campaign, co-sponsored by UNFPA and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), to raise public awareness about sexual and reproductive health issues worldwide.

Key domestic findings from the GB study include:


  • Law and order remains a top concern (cited by 33%, up one point on 1996)
  • Worry about unemployment has dropped from 48% in 1996 to 23%
  • Concerns about education have fallen from 30% in 1996, to 16% now
  • Worries about race relations and immigration have risen from 3% in 1996, to 19% now.


The European responses reveal a similar pattern - a fall in concern over unemployment, from an average of 59% to 29%, and a rise in worries about race relations and immigration, from 12% to 21%.

The British public's greatest international concern is the environment and global warming (33% now, up from 22% in 1996), followed by poverty at 29%, compared to 20% five years ago. Concern about war and internal conflict has dropped from 40% to 14%.

Britons believe foreign aid represents about 9% of their government's expenditure (although two fifths were unable to give an estimate). In fact, the actual level in 1999 was just 0.7%. When told this, most respondents (53%) believed it to be too low, a third (32%) felt it was about right and 7% felt that it was too high.

Health and education remain the two areas that the British public would most like to see benefit from foreign aid, suggesting increased awareness that providing support for social sector programmes of developing countries can help solve their developmental problems.

In Great Britain, MORI interviewed a representative quota sample of 1,086 adults aged 16+ across 193 sampling points from 1 to 5 February 2001. All interviews were conducted face-to-face in-home and data have been weighted to the known profile of the British population.

MORI also co-ordinated surveys of a similar magnitude in the other 12 countries covered by this research. The total sample size (inc. GB) was 13,350 adults in Europe.