Half of Britons would like to bring about their own death when they felt it's time
A newly released Ipsos survey finds that more Britons want to be able to die at a time of their choosing than not: 47% agree that "I would like to be able to bring about my own death peacefully when I feel it's time".
A newly released Ipsos survey finds that more Britons want to be able to die at a time of their choosing than not: 47% agree that "I would like to be able to bring about my own death peacefully when I feel it's time". Three in ten (31%) disagree and one in five (20%) are uncertain.
While there are few differences between men and women's views on this issue, there are notable differences by age: more than half of middle-aged individuals agree that they would like to be able to bring about their own deaths peacefully when they feel it's time (52% of 30-49 year olds, and 55% of 50-64 year olds agree). However, this figure drops for indivuals over age 65: 44% agree (and 39% disagree) that they would like to be able to bring about their own deaths peacefully when they feel it's time.
Young people age 15-29 are also divided on the issue: a third (32%) agree that they would like to be able to bring about their own deaths peacefully when they feel it's time, and another third (33%) disagree, with the final third saying they don't know. Non-religious individuals are also more likely to agree that they would like to be able to bring about their own deaths peacefully when they feel it's time: 60% of those saying they are of no religion agree, while just 43% of those giving their religion agree.
Technical Note
Results are taken from Ipsos's Real Trends survey based on 2,019 interviews conducted among a representative sample of adults aged 15+, living in Great Britain. Fieldwork comprised both online and self-completion methodologies. 1,012 online and 1,007 self-completion questionnaires were completed between 9 May and 5 June 2008.
Where results do not sum to 100%, this may be due to multiple responses, computer rounding or the exclusion of "not stated" response categories. An asterisk (*) represents a value of less than half of one per cent, but not zero. Results are based on all 2,019 respondents, unless otherwise stated.
Data were weighted to match the profile of the population by gender, age, region, employment status, social grade, ethnic group and cars in household. Additional attitudinal weighting was employed to compensate for differential recruitment and response rates among face-to-face Omnibus respondents and by a propensity score method to correct for differences between the online panel and the offline Omnibus samples.
