Svenskarna hamnar långt ner på Ipsos ”Index of Ignorance”

Ipsos har i en ny global studie undersökt människors kunskaper om samhället, till exempel när det handlar om andelen utrikes födda och hur stor andel av befolkningen som är överviktiga. Det visar sig att oroväckande många har felaktiga uppfattningar om hur det egna landets befolkning ser ut.

Studien är gjord i 33 länder. Befolkningen i Mexiko har sämst uppfattning om samhället medan Sydkoreas befolkning har bäst uppfattning. I Sverige har vi förvisso mindre fel än på många andra håll, men ändå överskattas exempelvis andelen invandrare i befolkningen samtidigt som andelen kvinnliga riksdagsledamöter underskattas.

- Felaktiga uppfattningar om samhället kan påverka hur människor formar sina åsikter om olika samhällsproblem, och kan få betydelse för vilka politiska lösningar som ses som rimliga och relevanta, säger David Ahlin, Nordenchef på Ipsos Public Affairs. 

Svenskarna tror i genomsnitt att 25 procent av befolkningen är född utomlands medan den verkliga siffran är omkring 16-17 procent. Vi tror att 38 procent av ledamöterna i riksdagen är kvinnor, den verkliga andelen är ca 44 procent.

- Invandringen till Sverige under 2014 var den högsta sedan kriget på Balkan i början av 90-talet. Och i år kommer mer än dubbelt så många, omkring 170 000 personer, att ha sökt asyl i Sverige. Att invandringen just nu är stor och att invandringsfrågan dominerar debatten har säkert betydelse för att vi överskattar andelen utrikes födda, säger David Ahlin.

Ta del av hela undersökningen här.

Testa dina egna kunskaper om Sverige och svenskarna här.

För mer info, kontakta:
David Ahlin, david.ahlin@ipsos.com
Nordenchef, Ipsos Public Affairs

Bilaga om undersökningen:

The full Ipsos “Index of Ignorance” is given in the table below. Mexico and India receive the dubious honour of being the most inaccurate in their perceptions on these issues, while South Koreans are the most accurate, followed by the Irish. There are some regional patterns in this table – for example Latin American countries tend to be more inaccurate, European and Americans more accurate – but this hides individual differences, and is not the whole story. New Zealand is the least accurate of the developed countries (in the top five most ignorant), while China is in the top 5 most accurate.

Bobby Duffy, Managing Director of Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute, said:

“Across all 33 countries in the study, each population gets a lot wrong. We are often most incorrect on factors that are widely discussed in the media or highlighted as challenges facing societies, such as the proportion of young adults still living at home, immigration and wealth inequality. We know from previous studies that this is partly because we over-estimate what we worry about – as well as worrying about the issues we think are widespread.

But we do also underestimate some key challenges such as obesity. In many countries, we’re maybe not as worried as we should be, given the extent to which our populations are overweight.

We also get facts wrong that will make us focus on some issues more than they perhaps deserve: for example, we tend to think our populations are much older than they actually are, and that more people live in rural areas than is really the case.

There are multiple reasons for these errors – from our struggle with simple maths and proportions, to media coverage of issues, to social psychology explanations of our mental shortcuts or biases. It is also clear from our “Index of Ignorance” that the countries who tend to do worst have relatively low internet penetrations: given this is an online survey, this is therefore likely to reflect that this more middle-class and connected population generalise from their own experience rather than consider the much greater variety of circumstances in the full populations of their country.”

For more information and to take the Perils of Perception Quiz please go to: www.ipsos-mori.com/perilsofperception

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

For further information, please contact Aalia Khan on 0207 347 3985

Technical note:

These are the findings of the Ipsos MORI Perils of Perception Survey. 25,556 interviews were conducted between conducted between October 1^st – October 16^th 2015.

The survey is conducted in 33 countries around the world via the Ipsos Online Panel system in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Great Britain, Turkey and the United States of America.

Approximately 1000+ individuals were surveyed in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Serbia, Spain, Great Britain Montenegro, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and the United States of America. Approximately 500+ individuals were surveyed in the remaining countries.

Where results do not sum to 100, this may be due to computer rounding, multiple responses or the exclusion of don't knows or not stated responses.

Data are weighted to match the profile of the population.

The “actual” data for each question is taken from a variety of verified sources for each question and country – a full list of sources/links to the actual data can be found here