PRESS RELEASE

Nova Scotians Value Friendship and Generosity over Material Wealth

Nova Scotians give much more importance to non-materialist values like family, friendship, responsibility, generosity and spiritual faith than on material wealth. But they think other Canadians are much more materialistic than themselves, putting career success, money, and pleasure far ahead of family, friendship, responsibility, generosity, and spiritual faith.

That's the finding of a unique survey of more than 3,600 residents of Kings County and Glace Bay conducted by GPI Atlantic, a Halifax-based non-profit research group, and released today. GPI Atlantic notes that questions on values are rarely asked in conventional surveys, and that the two surveyed Nova Scotian communities are so different that it's likely their values are widely shared by other Nova Scotians.

As part of a very wide-ranging survey on health, jobs, livelihood, safety, social supports, volunteer work, the environment, and other key aspects of wellbeing, survey respondents were asked to rank ten values in terms of their importance as guiding life principles.

Analysis of the data shows that 95% of respondents gave very high importance to family, but they thought only 56% of other Canadians did so. Only 27% assigned high importance to material wealth (far fewer than for any other value), but they thought 68% of other Canadians regarded it as very important. And 76% rated generosity as very important but they thought only 37% of other Canadians gave it high importance.

According to Michael Pennock, lead researcher in the project: "Nova Scotians seem to view themselves as socially caring people living in a materialistic and career-oriented society. In fact, the numbers show that the dominant materialism and commercial culture of our times may be out of touch with what matters to people and with their deepest core values." Pennock, formerly research director at the Population Health Research Unit at Dalhousie University, is now an epidemiologist in British Columbia.

On material issues, Kings County and Glace Bay residents were nearly three times as likely to give high importance to financial security as to material wealth. "So policies that enhance job security, ensure a living wage, and provide financial support in times of crisis or difficulty may correspond far more closely to Nova Scotians' needs and values than policies and inducements designed to encourage more consumption and production," says Pennock.

The survey also found that residents in both communities have strong ecological values. 83% said the way we live produces too much waste and that we focus too much on getting what we want now and not enough on conserving resources for future generations, and 85% said that most of us buy and consume more than we need.

Despite Glace Bay's tougher economic circumstances - with much higher unemployment rates and lower average incomes than Kings County - the survey found no significant differences in expressions of life satisfaction and happiness, and how they rated their own health. About 40% in both communities said they were very satisfied with their lives with about 50% more saying they were somewhat satisfied, 60% said they were happy and interested in life, and about 50% rated their health as excellent or very good.

The similar levels of life satisfaction, says Pennock, are likely due to the fact that Glace Bay residents reported lower stress levels, higher levels of spiritual faith and practice, and more frequent social contacts with neighbours and relatives than those in Kings County.

"So strong social ties and other non-material factors in Glace Bay seem to compensate for poorer economic conditions in raising levels of life satisfaction and happiness," says Pennock. "That's important information for policy makers and planners, because this GPI survey uncovered hidden strengths in the Glace Bay community that are invisible in the standard economic measures of progress."

But that doesn't mean income doesn't matter. The survey found that in both Glace Bay and Kings County, those with low incomes or who were unemployed had much poorer physical and mental health than those with higher incomes and jobs. Those with low incomes were about three times more likely than those with high incomes to experience severe pain and discomfort, to smoke daily, and to have activity limitations due to long-term health problems, and they were about twice as likely to have high blood pressure, arthritis, and other chronic diseases.

And the unemployed were only half as likely to say they were satisfied with their lives as those who had jobs or were retired. "The results clearly show that if we want to improve health and wellbeing, we have to reduce poverty and provide decent jobs," says Pennock. "But they also show that - above a certain level - more money is less important than social contacts, spiritual faith, reduced stress, and other non-material factors in improving wellbeing."

In Kings County, for example, the highest stress levels were recorded among the highest income earners - largely due to overwork, long work hours, and heavy work demands. Interestingly, one-quarter of all Kings workers said they'd willingly swap a future pay increase for more time off. And Kings County residents in general said less stress and more time with family and friends were the main things that would make them more satisfied with their lives - ranking these far above more money or more possessions.

Among the many other interesting survey results, it was found that those who had suffered physical abuse as children, or whose parents had drug or alcohol problems or were unemployed for long periods, were much more likely to suffer from depression as adults than those who did not have these childhood risk factors.

The results are part of a long-term effort by GPI Atlantic and others to develop indicators of genuine progress and wellbeing at the community level. Unlike standard measures of economic growth, the Genuine Progress Index (GPI) counts the costs as well as the benefits of economic activity, and measures progress and wellbeing according to a much wider range of social, economic, health, and environmental variables.

The Glace Bay and Kings County GPI Community Profiles, based on the Community GPI survey results, and a third volume titled A Tale of Two Communities, comparing key results from both surveys, are available at http://www.gpiatlantic.org/releases/pr_community.html

The full Kings County GPI survey results and database are housed at Acadia University and can be accessed by filling out the data access forms that are available on the GPI Kings website at: http://www.gpikings.org/ The full Glace Bay GPI survey results are housed at Cape Breton University and can be accessed by filling out the data access forms that are available on the GPI Glace Bay website at: http://discovery.uccb.ns.ca/glacebay_gpi/dataaccess.html The surveys are available at: http://www.gpiatlantic.org/community.htm, and the Glace Bay and Kings County GPI websites can also be accessed from that page.

The research and production of the community profiles was supported by the Province of Nova Scotia (Department of Health Promotion and Protection), Municipality of the County of Kings, Cape Breton Regional Municipality, Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation, Annapolis Valley District Health Authority, Cape Breton County Economic Development Agency, and Capital Health District. The survey itself was undertaken with support from the Canadian Population Health Initiative, the National Crime Prevention Centre, and the Canadian Rural Partnership.

For more information on survey results, please contact: Michael Pennock, lead researcher, and former director, Population Health Research Unit, Dalhousie University, at (250) 216-3669 (cell), (250) 519-7092 (work), or by email at Michael.Pennock@viha.ca; or Ronald Colman, Executive Director, GPI Atlantic at: 902-823-1944 (work), 902-489-7007 (cell), or by email at colman@gpiatlantic.org

For local comments on results, please also contact: Dr. Richard Gould, Medical Officer of Health, Annapolis Valley District Health Authority, at (902) 542-6310; and Dr. Peter MacIntyre, Professor, Psychology, Cape Breton University, at (902) 563-1315 (w); (902) 849-7935 (home in Glace Bay), or by email at: Peter_MacIntyre@capebretonu.ca