A University of Alberta sociology study found that people are less concerned about social issues as they age and make more money.
The research paper, “Enlightenment or Status Defence? Education and Social Problem Concerns From Adolescence to Midlife,” is part of the Edmonton Transitions Study (ETS).
ETS has surveyed the same group of nearly 1,000 high school seniors four times, starting in 1985. The most recent was in 2010, and the data from 485 of those participants was used for this study.
The 2010 survey found a decline over 25 years (age 18 to 43) in connection to concerns about racial discrimination, treatment of Aboriginal Peoples, female job discrimination, unemployment and environment pollution.
The general belief is that people become more conservative as they age, but the study’s lead author, Harvey Krahn, said there has never been good evidence to back that.
Instead, the paper looked into whether education achievement played a positive or negative factor in people’s interest in these issues, but concluded that higher income was the main influence in the steady decline.
“There’s two important findings in the paper. One is, yes, on average, people become a little less concerned about social and environmental issues,” Krahn told CTV News. “But the second finding is that most of that effect really has to do with people on average become wealthier.”
The paper emphasized the importance of post-secondary institutions taking responsibility and promoting social change.
“I think we still need to push for education,” Krahn said. “I think we need to actively promote the sort of knowledge and understanding of these social issues to every medium we possibly can.”
