Awareness of Prevelance of Unwanted Sexual Behaviour

This summary report details the results of a survey of n=1,076 New Zealand residents aged 18 years and older. The survey was conducted on behalf of the Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse Trust (MSSAT) during 2 February to 20 February and 23 April to 2 May 2015. The objectives of the survey are to gain a better understanding of:
 New Zealanders’ awareness of unwanted sexual behaviour and perceptions of its prevalence.
 New Zealanders’ views on which types or groups of people are more likely to experience or be targeted by unwanted sexual behaviour.
 The percentage of New Zealanders who personally know of anyone in New Zealand, male or female, who has been a target or recipient of unwanted sexual behaviour.
The telephone surveying was completed by Research New Zealand’s Omnibus Survey Service. Omnibus surveys are completed each month with a nationally representative sample of New Zealand residents aged 18 years and older. The surveying was conducted using a cold calling method, whereby prospective respondents’ telephone numbers were randomly selected from the White Pages. The survey achieved a response rate of 20 percent, which is typical for a cold-calling survey.
The data has been weighted by the respondents’ age and gender, based upon 2013 Census data, to ensure that it is representative of the age and gender profile of New Zealand adults.
The maximum margin of error for the achieved sample of n=1,076 respondents is ± 3.2 percent at the 95 percent confidence level. This means that should 50 percent of the survey respondents report they believed the issue of unwanted sexual behaviour or attention was common/very common in New Zealand, we are 95 percent confident that between 46.8 percent and 53.2 percent of adult New Zealanders believe unwanted sexual behaviour is a common/very common problem in New Zealand.
It should be noted that because of the sensitive nature of the survey subject – unwanted sexual behaviour or attention – respondents were given the option of not answering any of the MSSAT’s questions. Ultimately, 48 respondents chose to opt out of answering the questions at some stage of the interview. For the purposes of analysis and reporting, these respondents have been coded as “refused”. A copy of the survey questionnaire can be found in Appendix A to this report. Appendix B includes tables of the survey results, cross-tabulated by respondents’ age, gender, ethnicity, household income, and whether respondents personally know of someone who has been a target or recipient of unwanted sexual behaviour or attention at some time in their lifetime.