The NATION/CADRES poll conducted September 10 to 13 also sought to collect data on major issues in Barbados, and this section of the report speaks to these.
Initially, respondents were asked an “open-ended” question which was: Can you indicate the single most important national issue to you at this point? and the response was allocated into one of the categories used in the relevant chart entitled Major Issues.
This summary data immediately demonstrates that Barbadians are at this time most concerned about the cost of living since this is the major issue of concern to 27 per cent of Barbadians. Crime comes in as the second most important concern.
However, it should also be noted that 11 per cent of Barbadians were also concerned about the economy and 13 per cent worried about unemployment; and since these are all economic issues, it can be argued that we are overwhelmingly concerned about financial and economic matters.
Consistent with these findings, in the previous section of this poll report, Barbadians gave the DLP Government a failing grade on its handling of the economy.
It is interesting that there is a high level of convergence on these economic issues and crime, since few Barbadians were drawn to other issues such as housing and youth concerns (six per cent and five per cent respectively).
These two issues occupy the minds of 11 per cent of Barbadians in total, but could easily be related to the economy (housing) and crime (youth concerns) if one stretched the two concerns. It should also be noted that in the previous CADRES mid-term poll (2009) the major concerns were no different.
In as much as there is such a high level of cohesion relating to the most and least important issues, CADRES sought to determine the extent to which political party support impacted on the different concerns of Barbadians and from a statistical perspective, there was no direct correlation between party support and any major issue.
This means that supporters of both parties are equally concerned about the same issues, and this is consistent with the alignment of party support in Barbados and indeed across the Caribbean.
Notwithstanding, it can be seen in the relevant chart that slightly more Barbadians who were uncertain about their voting intention identified the cost of living as their major issue, while slightly more DLP supporters were worried about crime and more BLP supporters concerned about unemployment.
Since Government is the major employer in most Caribbean islands, it is not unusual that supporters of the Opposition are more likely to be unemployed and also more likely to be concerned about employment.
Regarding the “Uncertain Voter” and the cost of living issue, it is important to remember that the DLP did lose some ground in this poll (over last year’s) and this could perhaps explain the reasons why. It is apparent here that people who were previously loyal to the DLP have migrated to the “Uncertain Voter” category and it could be argued that this shift was prompted by their concern about the DLP not addressing this most important issue.
Since the much talked about ban on smoking in public places is set to take effect shortly, CADRES sought to gauge the opinion of Barbadians on this specific issue and our findings are presented in the chart entitled Support Ban On Smoking In Public Places. This chart presents the general support, as well as the instances in which there is a statistically significant correlation between some demographic variable and support for the smoking ban.
It can be seen that 85 per cent of Barbadians support the ban on smoking which can be considered overwhelming support, while 12 per cent are opposed and only three per cent did not answer the question. The very low level of non-response to this question reflects the fact that Barbadians have considered the issue (ban on smoking) and have definite opinions on it.
The correlations are also interesting since these demonstrate that women are more inclined to support the ban, with men being less inclined to support it and there is also an interesting age correlation which indicates that young people are more opposed to the ban, with older people being more supportive.
The other interesting observation here is that “Non- Practising” Christians were apparently less inclined to support the ban on smoking which is odd since smoking has traditionally not been identified as “sinful activity”. This reaction therefore indicates that smoking appears to have derived some amount of negative moral sanction in Barbados.
Next week CADRES will present the section of the report that speaks to the Tudor Street fire and related issues.
