Britain shows its softer side

Britain has become increasingly liberal over the last 25 years, with people growing much more tolerant of homosexuality, according to a new report.

The proportion of people who think sex between two men or two women is wrong has halved since the mid-1980s, although 36% of people still believe that homosexual relations are “always” or “mostly” wrong.

The British Social Attitudes Report found that all age groups had become more liberal in their views, although younger people remained the most accepting of homosexuality.

Attitudes towards cohabiting are also changing as fewer people believe that couples who share a home ought to get married. Almost half (45%) of those surveyed said it “makes no difference to children whether their parents are married to each other or just living together”, compared with 38% in 1998.

The report authors said that this may be an “indication of a more individualistic society in which alternative ways of living are becoming more and more acceptable”.

Andy Ross, one of the authors, said: “Changing attitudes reflect a complex combination of factors. In general, we are becoming more liberal and tolerant. But our attitudes are also strongly shaped by what we see in our daily lives.

“This is why people in their sixties and older have become more tolerant than we might expect about issues like cohabitation.

“Perhaps the personal experience of becoming a grandparent of a child born outside marriage might be leading older people to take a more liberal view.”

In 1983, when the annual survey was first published, 63% of people in Britain believed that sexual relations between two women or two men were “always” or “mostly” wrong. The report authors said this increased to 75% over the next four years as concern about Aids fuelled a rise in prejudice.

The figures have declined steadily since then and even older, more traditional generations are becoming increasingly accepting of homosexuality.

The report authors said they expected beliefs to continue to change “in a more liberal direction”. In the part of the survey that focused on attitudes towards divorce and couples who cohabit, around 80% of people agreed that “it is better to divorce than to continue an unhappy marriage”.

This was the case for those in their sixties as well as younger people. The older generation is also becoming more accepting of couples who have children, but are not married.

In 1998, a third of people thought that it made a difference to children if their parents were married to each other, but by 2006 this had fallen to 27%.

Britain is now one of Europe’s more tolerant countries when it comes to “non-traditional”

family arrangements, such as cohabiting and couples who choose never to have children, according to the latest report. However, one topic which sparked strong disapproval was the issue of working mothers, as 38% of people said they

disapproved of women who have a child under the age of three continuing to work full-time, compared with 15% in Denmark and 17% in Poland.

The British public also appears to be developing a stricter attitude when it comes to cannabis, with the survey finding that 58% wanted the drug to remain illegal, compared to 46% in 2001.

The authors of the report, which involved questioning around 3500 people across the UK last spring and summer, said the finding reflected “growing concern about the impact cannabis can have on individuals and society as a whole”.