Society, Culture and Values
Trends 2005 [Trends in U.S. Society]
This report contains seven chapters with key findings on a number of key issues in U.S. life. Some of the highlights are the following:
· The American Public: Opinions and Values -- Notwithstanding a sharp partisan divide over national security, the latest survey found that fundamental American values still reflect a mix of both consensus and contention; there is, for example, broad public agreement about the importance of religion, the power of the individual and the need for environmental protection.
· Religion & Public Life: A Faith-Based Partisan Divide -- While national security is now the most influential political value, religious practice has become the most important demographic characteristic in shaping electoral behavior. Despite the fact that the great majority of Americans are religious and believe in God, whether a person regularly attends church correlated much more strongly with his or her vote for president last year than did such demographic characteristics as gender, age, income or region.
· Media: More Voices, Less Credibility -- In the past two decades, the public has lost more confidence in the media than in any other major institution in American society - including government, business, religion, education, the military and others.
· Internet: The Mainstreaming of Online Life -- On a typical day at the end of 2004, 70 million American adults logged onto the internet, a 37 percent increase over the number who did so in 2000.
· Hispanics: A People in Motion -- Latino immigrants have birth rates twice as high as those of the rest of the U.S. population, foretelling a sharp increase ahead in the percentage of Latinos who will be in schools and the work place. Between now and 2020, Latinos are expected to account for about half the growth of the U.S. labor force.
· States: Policy Innovation Amid Fiscal Constraint -- On issues ranging from health care to education to the environment to stem cell research to gay marriage, states are embarking on a different policy course from that of the federal government. They are being driven sometimes by ideology and often by fiscal pressure.
· Global Opinion: The Spread of Anti-Americanism -- After a brief uptick following the September 11 attack, opinions about the United States have fallen precipitously in nearly every corner of the globe. Anti-Americanism is deeper and broader now than at any time in modern history, fueled by a perception that the U.S. acts only in its own interests and is indifferent to those of other nations.
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