Backyard Diversity

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/multiculturalism/diversity-yes-in-my-backyard/article1736042/

An interesting survey about the level of diversity people would like in their own neighborhood, by country.

Search by: People of a Different Race
Hong Kong is the most unwilling (86.3%), and by a pretty big margin - followed by a smooth curve of Jordan (52.5%), India (48.8%), Vietnam (42.4%), Rwanda (37.2%)...
The bottom ten here are mostly the usual, with some surprises. Sweden, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, Argentina, Andorra, United States, Norway, New Zealand, Australia, Guatemala - all below 5%. Finland is quite high with 12.2%. The chart for Immigrant, Foreign Workers is quite similar, although the United States becomes somewhat less tolerant.

Search by: Drug Addicts
Again, Hong Kong distinguishes itself - it's by far and away the most tolerant of drug addicts, with only 12.3% in opposition. For some reason, this chart is the reverse image of the first in several ways... Vietnam, next after Hong Kong, is 51.7%, followed by India (60.3%), and Rwanda (62.9%)... but also by Guatemala (57.8%). This chart puzzles me. East Asians dominate both extremes, with South Korea and Taiwan being almost universal in their disapproval. No European country has less than 70% in disapproval, but I was still surprised to see that Germany (74.2%) and Switzerland (74.4%) were more accepting than the Netherlands (85.5%) The graph for Heavy Drinkers shows many similarities, including Hong Kong being by far the most tolerant, followed by Vietnam and Guatemala.

Search by: People who speak another language
These are all pretty low, with Jordan bringing up the lead at nearly 50%. Europe and South America are more tolerant, on average, than Asia and Africa. France is the first European country, at 27.6%, then there are some Eastern European countries before the United States comes in at 11.1%, about the middle. The most tolerant countries are Sweden, Norway, Andorra, and Canada (no surprises), Argentina (hmm), and Spain (really??). Taiwan, as a tolerant Asian country, is the exception, and Hong Kong isn't listed this time.

Search by: People of a different religion
These results were surprisingly low. Only Jordan nudges above 50% with 51.2%, followed closely by India, Vietnam, Iran, Georgia, and Rwanda. The United States is shockingly low at 2.6%, ahead of the Netherlands, Andorra, or Norway, and only behind Canada, Argentina, Trinidad and Tobago, Great Britain, and Sweden - and only by the narrowest of margins. I credit the Jews. We tend to like the Jews, enough to make us unwilling to show our prejudices towards Muslims, lest we be thought of as anti-semetic.

Search by: Homosexuals
These results filled the whole range, from Jordan at 97%, to Cyprus at 50%, to Sweden at 4.4%. The U.S. is at 26%. Acceptance for Unmarried Couples Living Together shows a roughly similar order, but the more accepting two-thirds of countries are much more accepting, before unwillingless shoots up rather quickly, mostly for Asian, African, and Middle Eastern countries.

Search by: People with AIDS
This has a lot in common with the chart for Homosexuals, and could also be influenced by levels of education. There is one notable exception: South Africa is the second most tolerant (7.3%) -and several other African countries break the top half. Hong Kong reappears and is for once right in the center.

Summaries:
Sweden, Norway, Argentina, and Canada are consistently tolerant of differences and lifestyle choices, but not of destructive behaviors. Jordan, Vietnam, Iran, Georgia, Rwanda, and Indonesia were usually found at the other end. The Middle East and Africa tended to remain conservative regardless of whether destructive/dangerous behaviors or lifestyle choices were being discussed, instead of flip-flopping like European and some Asian countries. South America was quite accepting and liberal, often as much so as Europe, with Mexico usually a bit more conservative and always folling in the center. Hong Kong was often not listed, but where it was listed it tended to be an outlier. The United States was in general much more accepting than I think people tend to believe.

Skin Colour:
The most interesting things to me were the relationship with tolerance for a different race, with tolerance for immigrant workers, differences in religion and language, and drug addiction. In the United States, people like to insist that they are not racist, only that they don't want their jobs taken (immigrant workers), think that immigrants should learn English (language), and judge people instead by their behavior (drug addiction). The results support this assertion somewhat, as they show that we are very intolerant of drug addiction, and less tolerant of immigrant workers than a random person of a different race... but that on the whole we are quite accepting of people of other religions (again, I credit the Jews), reasonably tolerant of other languages (this is a bit of a surprise, and really extremely tolerant, or so we say, of racial diversity.

On the other hand, Hong Kong tends to dislike people of other races quite strongly, while being the most accepting of drug addiction, heavy drinking, etc. I wish it was listed for religion, language, etc, because the results could be quite interesting - I would assume they wouldn't care much about religion, but I'm not sure about language. What struck me about what information we do have about Hong Kong, though, is that they would much rather have a drug addicted, heavy drinking person of their own race as a neighbor, than someone of another race. Either they think that foreigners do some really, really bad things, or it is the skin colour alone that bothers them.

Comparing the two, it would seem that either America is telling the truth when they say it's not the skin colour of other races that bother them, but other aspects that often happen to fall, or at least seem to often fall, along racial divides... either that, or we are so used to saying that, that we think we think that, and even put it on anonymous surveys.