

And supporters of several right-wing populist parties in Europe are also less likely to see homosexuality as acceptable. In many countries, those on the political right are less accepting of homosexuality than those on the left. Political ideology also plays a role in acceptance of homosexuality. For example, in some countries, those who are affiliated with a religious group tend to be less accepting of homosexuality than those who are unaffiliated (a group sometimes referred to as religious “nones”). In addition, religion and its importance in people’s lives shape opinions in many countries. In many of the countries surveyed, there also are differences on acceptance of homosexuality by age, education, income and, in some instances, gender – and in several cases, these differences are substantial. (For more on acceptance of homosexuality over time among all the countries surveyed, see Appendix A.) In Kenya, only 1 in 100 said homosexuality should be accepted in 2002, compared with 14% who say this now. In both countries, just over half said they accepted homosexuality in 2002, but now closer to seven-in-ten say this. There also have been fairly large shifts in acceptance of homosexuality over the past 17 years in two very different places: Mexico and Japan. India also saw a 22-point increase since 2014, the first time the question was asked of a nationally representative sample there. This includes a 21-point increase since 2002 in South Africa and a 19-point increase in South Korea over the same time period.


Many of the countries surveyed in 20 have seen a double-digit increase in acceptance of homosexuality. In many nations, there has been an increasing acceptance of homosexuality, including in the United States, where 72% say it should be accepted, compared with just 49% as recently as 2007. This is a function not only of economic development of nations, but also religious and political attitudes.īut even with these sharp divides, views are changing in many of the countries that have been surveyed since 2002, when Pew Research Center first began asking this question. And publics in the Asia-Pacific region generally are split. Those in Western Europe and the Americas are generally more accepting of homosexuality than are those in Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. Here are the questions used for the report, along with responses, and the survey methodology.ĭespite major changes in laws and norms surrounding the issue of same-sex marriage and the rights of LGBT people around the world, public opinion on the acceptance of homosexuality in society remains sharply divided by country, region and economic development.Īs it was in 2013, when the question was last asked, attitudes on the acceptance of homosexuality are shaped by the country in which people live. Across Europe, the survey was conducted over the phone in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK, but face to face in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine. In the Asia-Pacific region, face-to-face surveys were conducted in India, Indonesia and the Philippines, while phone surveys were administered in Australia, Japan and South Korea. The surveys were conducted face to face across Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, and on the phone in United States and Canada. The term “homosexuality,” while sometimes considered anachronistic in the current era, is the most applicable and easily translatable term to use when asking this question across societies and languages and has been used in other cross-national studies, including the World Values Survey.įor this report, we used data from a survey conducted across 34 countries from May 13 to Oct.
#WORLD ACCEPTANCE NEAR ME HOW TO#
Respondents did not get any further instructions on how to interpret the question and no significant problems were noted during the fielding of the survey. Respondents had an option to not answer the question (they could volunteer “don’t know” or refuse to answer the question). by the Pew Research Center in 1994 and globally in 2002. The question is a long-term trend, first asked in the U.S.

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The full question wording was, “And which one of these comes closer to your opinion? Homosexuality should be accepted by society OR Homosexuality should not be accepted by society.” This analysis focuses on whether people around the world think that homosexuality should be accepted by society or not.
