July 2014
Featured in this insight: Culture, heritage & leisure
Half of survey’s participants don’t want Britain to have an Empire: A study conducted with more than 1,700 British adults discovered that almost half of its respondents do not want Britain to still have an Empire.
Collectively, 45% of the survey’s participants said ‘no’, they would not like Britain to have an Empire, compared to one third (34%) who said ‘yes’ and one fifth who stated they ‘don’t know’.
Males (49%) were slightly more like to oppose to Britain still having an Empire than females (41%), with 25 to 39 year olds the age category least likely to conflict.
Thinking about the British Empire, although the majority of respondents (59%) said it is more something to be proud of, one fifth (19%) of the study’s 1,741-strong sample said it was more something to be ashamed of.
A breakdown of the study’s findings showed that males (62%) were more likely to be proud of the British Empire than females (55%), with 18 to 24 year olds around 10% more likely than any other age category to be ashamed.
Furthermore, half (49%) of the poll’s respondents thought that countries colonised by Britain are better off as a result, compared to one sixth (15%) who believe they are worse off and around one third (36%) who are unsure.
Age-wise, 18 to 24 year olds (23%) were noticeably more likely than 25 to 39 year olds (15%), 40 to 59 year olds (16%) and 60+ year olds (11%) to think countries were worse off for being colonised by Britain.
The research for this insight was conducted by YouGov.
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