Stoic Week 2017 Report (part 1) Demographics by Tim LeBon

This report gives the demographics for Stoic Week 2017 which took place between Monday October 16 – Sunday October 22. Future reports will follow providing analysis of how taking part affected well-being and how being Stoic is associated with well-being.
The headlines are:

  • Over 43% of respondents are from USA, Europe (including UK) comprising 34%. Within Europe, more were from outside UK (19%) than in the UK (15%). Future questionnaires should perhaps capture individual countries as it would be useful to know whether there is a core of Stoics in, say Copenhagen or Oslo or Madrid.
  • As in previous years, the vast majority of respondents have never participated in Stoic week before. So although a few people always ask us to change the workbook significantly, for most people this is not at all important.
  • The ratio of males to females was 65% to 34%. This is similar to previous years and as in previous years perhaps we need to consider whether this ratio just needs to be accepted or whether there is something that can be done to make Stoicism more appealing to females.
  • More people completed the questionnaires compared to last year (2860 up from 1798). There was at the same time about a large increase in the number people taking part in Stoic Week. Including those who both did and did not complete questionnaires, about 7000 people registered for Stoic Week in 2017. Stoicism seems to be getting more and more popular.

Below are 5 tables summarising all the facts and figures and 2016 and 2015 comparisons

Gender Total 2017% 2016 % 2015 %
Male 1839 65 66 65
Female 972 34 33 34
Decline to state 26 1 1 1
Other 14 0.5

Table 1: Stoic Week 2017 by gender
 

Age Total 2017% 2016% 2015 %
over 55 482 17 13 17
46-55 508 18 17 18
36-45 637 22 21 23
26-35  757 27 25 25
18-25 429 15 22 16
Under 18 41 1 1 2

Table 2: Stoic Week 2017 by age
 

Location Total %  2016  % 2015 %
USA 1233 43 43 42
Australasia  141 5 5 5
Canada 274 10 12 16
Europe (outside UK)) 529 19 17 15
UK 425 15 14 17
Africa 27 1 1 1
Asia 84 3 3 2
South & Central America 69 2 3 1
Other 56 2 2 2

 Table 3: Stoic Week 2017 by geographic location
 

Number of times participated in Stoic Weeks previously Total  
%
2016
%
2015 %
0 2235 79 77 78
1 370 13 14 16
2 148 5 6 4
3 50 2 3 2
4 (or more) 36 1 1 0

Table 4: Stoic Week 2017 : Previous participation
 

Knowledge of Stoicism Total %  2016   % 2015 %
None 261 9 11 13
Novice 865 30 33 32
I know a bit  1170 41 39 38
I know quite a bit but not an expert 550 19 16 16
Expert 13 0.5 1 1

Table 5: Stoic Week 2017 : Self-rating of knowledge of Stoicism
Tim LeBon is the author of Wise Therapy and Activate Your Potential With Positive Psychology.  He can be contacted via email at tim@timlebon.com.  His website is  http://www.timlebon.com

5 thoughts on Stoic Week 2017 Report (part 1) Demographics by Tim LeBon

  1. Ron Peters says:

    It would have been mildly interesting to know the participants’ employment status. I wondered how many of the younger attendees were students and how many of the older men were retired for instance. Do we also know how they heard about the event?

  2. Tim LeBon says:

    Thanks, we can add employment status next time. I suspect many of the younger people were instructed to take part, so that could be another question perhaps (on a scale of 0-10 how much are you expecting to get out of Stoic Week might capture this). We will report on how people found out in report 4. Tim

  3. […] reports have summarised the demographics of Stoic Week and the relationship (measured at the start of Stoic Week) between Stoicism, […]

  4. […] of the report on Stoic Week 2017. The previously published parts of the report summarised the  demographics, the relationships between well-being and degree of Stoicism at the start of Stoic Week, the […]

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