GALLUP
NEWS SERVICE
PRINCETON, NJ -- In the past decade, the intersection of technology and consumerism has transformed India. Indians are adapting their traditional lifestyles -- and mindsets -- to participate fully in the new economic opportunities available. For example, Gallup World Poll data indicate that more than 8 in 10 Indians approve of women who want a job or a career outside the home -- far more than the 53% who said so 10 years ago.
But when it comes to other traditional social mores, Indians are far more conservative. Less than half of the population (46%) approves of people who marry someone from a lower social class; even fewer (30%) approve of people who marry an Indian of a different religion, and just one in four (25%) approve of people who marry a non-Indian.
Interestingly, Indians of different generations remain largely in sync on these questions. Of four questions asked about marriage, only marrying someone from a lower social class is subject to a strong generational difference: Indians 55 and older are significantly less likely to approve of this long-standing taboo than are their younger counterparts. When it comes to a number of other values-oriented questions, including whether couples should live together without getting married, the youngest Indian adults are no more likely to say they approve than are their parents or grandparents.
The finding that Indians of all age groups share similar social values contrasts with the generational divisions typically seen in the United States when it comes to controversial social issues. In a recent
Harvard Business Review article, Gallup's Ashok Gopal and Rajesh Srinivasan point out that India is one of the world's oldest civilizations, and "rather than dispense with traditional values, it has wrapped modernity around its traditional core." Whether the youngest generations of Indians continue to embrace that traditional core will merit scrutiny.
Survey Methods
Results are based on face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of 2,100 residents of India, aged 15 and older, conducted Jan.3-Feb. 15, 2006. Interviews were conducted in English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Bengali. For results based on these samples, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling, weighting, and other random effects is ±3 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
