Knowing how others see us

A recent survey looking at the perceived trustworthiness of the police included clergy in the list of comparison groups. (Thanks to British Religion in Numbers.)

It turns out that, in general, clergy are deemed noticeably less trustworthy than nurses and doctors, or the police, but more so than lawyers and accountants.

And, thankfully, they are trusted more than tabloid journalists - the question there is why they are trusted by as many as 13% of people.

This survey should not be comfortable reading for clergy. First, I guess it contradicts the self-image of most clergy. Second it suggests clergy have real image problems with two important groups: younger adults and members of ethnic minorities.

Over two-thirds of younger adults find clergy untrustworthy or don't know. This suggests to me that there is a mountain to climb if the church wants to re-balance its age profile by attracting young people. (Or, alternatively, I suppose churches could work harder to strengthen their links with older people who are positively inclined to trust clergy.)

Summary:

% very/quite trustworthy	UK	London
Nurses	86	83
Doctors	85	84
Teachers	80	79
Armed forces	75	70
Judges	68	65
Police	65	60
Clergy	59	53
Accountants	56	55
Lawyers	52	47
Broadsheet journalists	25	36
Politicians	16	20
Tabloid journalists	13	16

Gender: In the more detailed survey results men and women trust clergy more or less equally but more men find them untrustworthy (30 % as opposed to 25% - the difference is that more women don't know).

Age: Older people trust clergy much more than younger people. In the 18-24 age group just 29% thought them trustworthy (as opposed to 72% of 75's and over). 37% of 18-24 year olds found them untrustworthy while 36% didn't know or weren't sure.

Regions: Geographic analysis shows intriguing differences. The North East and Wales have the highest proportion of people judging clergy to be trustworthy (64%), whilst the lowest figure (54%) is found between these two areas, in the North West, and in Northern Ireland.  (added later: Wales has the largest proportion of the population who reported 'no religion' in the 2011 census.)

Ethnicity: Amongst white people 62% thought clergy trustworthy and 26% untrustworthy. Among ethnic minority respondents 39% thought clergy trustworthy and 40% untrustworthy.