Mood of First-Time Voter: 40% of college grads pray at least once a week, 46% of HS grads not religious

The Lok Sabha election in a few months is set to see a massive 130 million first-time voters go to the polls. The stakes are already high for the National Democratic Alliance that seeks to secure five more years and a seemingly united Opposition that seeks to dislodge the ruling BJP and its allies at any cost. To get a better idea of how young first-time voters — people aged 18 to 21 — perceive of the forthcoming election, YouGov India and Firstpost conducted a nationwide survey between 5 and 16 December, 2018. There was a total of 1,332 respondents, from a panel of over 40,000, who answered questions ranging from politics and jobs, to religion and the media. The findings are being serialised in four sections: 1)  Politics and Ideology 2)  News and Media 3) Religion 4) Jobs and Economy The fourth part of the section titled ‘Religion’ examines the differing views of high school and college graduates. Fifty-four percent of high school graduates identified as being religious, compared to 62 percent of college graduates surveyed. And while 40 percent of college graduates claimed to pray at least once a week, 20 percent in this category stated that they visit a place of worship more than once a week. In comparison, 35 percent of high school graduates said they prayed at least once a week, with 16 percent claiming to visit a place of worship more than once a week. When it comes to business-related matters, 39 percent of high school graduates said religion would impact their decision-making, compared to 44 percent of college graduates. To read the findings of the section of the survey titled 'Politics and Ideology', click here . To read the findings of the section of the survey titled 'News and Media', click here .