71 Percent of youth state that they intend to vote on Election Day

​​With the Local Government Elections coming up on 3rd August, all political parties want to make the best of the remaining seven weeks to rally more support. With young people making up a good deal of new votes, it is valuable to know how they think and feel about politics, political parties, and local issues.

From 29 March 2016 to 11 May 2016, Ipsos conducted 3,786 face-to-face interviews in the homes and home languages of randomly chosen respondents, representative of South Africans 15 years and older.  Of these 912 were in the 15 to 24 age group.

Low Interest in Politics

When asked how interested they were in politics and elections, 18-24 year olds share similar levels of interest as the older age groups.  However, more than 6 out of 10 younger people between the ages of 15 and 17 said that they are not interested in politics and elections, with other priorities clearly being of more interest.  However, with only 15% of adults saying that they are interested in politics and elections we cannot claim huge political awareness as a population.

How the youth feel about South Africa’s future

Less than three in ten (28%) South Africans adults believe that the country is going in the right direction. Young South Africans share this opinion: only 26% of 15-17 year olds and 30% of 18-24 year olds feel believe the country is going in the right direction.

Looking to the future however, the optimism of youth shines through. Almost two-thirds (65%) of those 15 to 17 years old and 61% of 18-24 year olds say that they are very or fairly confident of a happy future for all races in the country. The corresponding figure for all South African adults is 58%.
 

Pressing issues amongst the youth.

Respondents were asked which issues were most important for the government to address – firstly as a list of all the issues that are important, and then to name the most important issue for them . Unemployment and job creation was listed as the most important issue by 37% of 15-17 year olds and 49% of 18 – 24 year olds.

While education is mentioned by almost half (47%) of 15 – 17 year olds, it becomes slightly less of an issue (40%) for 18 – 24 year olds, and corruption and development increase in importance.

Most important issues that young people want the government to address:  

Party Support amongst the youth

Although almost four in every ten (37%) of 18-24 year olds said that there was no political party that represented their views, they did indicate which party they would choose if a national election was held the next day:

 

Almost half (47%) chose the ANC as their party of choice – but 8% of young adults indicated they would not vote, whilst a further 6% are not registered at all.   The 11% who either refused to answer this question or indicated that they do not (yet) know which party to vote for, can make this picture look very different on election day.

When asked about intention to vote, almost a quarter (24%) said that they do not really want to vote or definitely do not want to vote, 71% said that they definitely wanted to vote or wanted to vote, while 5% indicated that they did not know.  The age group who most want to vote in the upcoming local government elections are those older than 50: 78% of them indicated they either definitely want to vote or want to vote on 3 August.

 

 

Technical detail
A total of 3,786 personal face-to-face interviews were conducted with randomly selected adult South Africans. The interviews were done in the homes and home languages of respondents.  Trained quantitative fieldworkers from all population groups were responsible for the interviewing, which took place from 29 March 2016 to 11 May 2016.  Interviews were done all over the country, from metropolitan areas to deep rural areas. This methodology ensured that the results are representative of the views of the universe and that findings can be weighted and projected to the universe – i.e. South Africans 15 years and older.

Interviews were conducted using CAPI (Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing) and all results were collated and analyzed in an aggregate format to protect the identity and confidentiality of respondents.

All sample surveys are subject to a margin of error, determined by sample size, sampling methodology and response rate. The sample error for the sample as a whole at a 95% confidence level is a maximum of 1,63%.