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