Religion has a positive influence in the country. This is what more than half of the 66,806 respondents believe in the survey in 65 countries, including Macedonia, show the results of the End of Year survey implemented by WIN/Gallup International.
The results of the survey in Macedonia show that 68 percent of respondents believe religion has a positive role in the country compared to 11 percent who reported a negative role.
Globally, 59 percent of respondents believe that religion has a positive impact while 22 percent believe that religion has a negative impact. In Western Europe there has been significantly less positive impact (4 %) compared to other regions in the world.
The education, the survey results show, is inherent factor in the attitude towards the positive influence of religion among respondents. Those with higher education believe that religion has less influence.
In Macedonia can be noted that the net score i.e. the difference between the positive and negative impact amounts to 76 percent among those with no education which is more than double that among the citizens with the highest level of education (Masters and PhDs ) which scored 36 percent .
The global picture shows that Protestants and Muslims are with largest net positive score of 60 percent, whereas the lowest positive net score of 24 percent was recorded among the Hindus. Globally, the country with the largest negative net score is Lebanon (-43 %).
The analysis results in Macedonia showed that the positive net score of the role of religion in the country is under significant influence of the perception of citizens that see the future with optimism (they expect 2014 to be better than 2013). Also, an influence in the same direction is observed among citizens that are generally satisfied with the life they live (net scores in both categories is 61 % ).
End of the Year survey is an annual tradition established since 1977. This year 66,806 people were interviewed in 65 countries and the research was conducted among a nationally representative sample of about 1,000 respondents. The survey was conducted from October to December 2013. The overall margin of error is + / - 3-5 % with a confidence level of 95 %.
In Macedonia, a field survey was conducted among a nationally representative sample of 1,214 respondents aged over 15 years, November 8 - 14 2013.
