Consumer Psyche

TOI: They've often been called the "me-first" generation and stereotyped as the lot that doesn't give a damn about the rest of the world so long as their lives are one long picnic. But, is that how young urban Indians see themselves? Not in the least, it turns out.

In an eight-city survey of youth's attitude to charity we found that 80% of those aged between 18 and 35 thought of themselves as charitable. Women were more likely to regard themselves as charitable (84%) than men (76%).

But the constantly pillorying by older people about being too self-centred by far does seem to have affected young people's perception of themselves. More than 60% of those surveyed felt they were less charitable than their parents or grandparents.

But there were some interesting variations in the answer to that question across the eight cities polled. In Hyderabad and Chennai, the majority saw themselves as more charitable than previous generations. More than 40% said so as well in yet another southern city, Bangalore.

The survey, done exclusively for TOI by Synovate, a leading market research agency, was conducted in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Lucknow and Jaipur. It covered respondents from socio-economic categories (SEC) A and B1.

About half the respondents were aged between 18 and 25 years and the other half were in the 26-35 year age group. The ratio of males to females was 60:40 and the total number of respondents 1,000. It asked questions about the kind of charity work that young Indians find most acceptable, how much of their own time and energy they devote to charitable work and how far they trust charitable institutions.