DOES DEMOGRAPHIC KNOWLEDGE MATTER - RESULTS OF A POLL IN THE NEW-YORK-CITY WATERSHED

A 1993 telephone survey of 1,150 households in 15 upstate towns in the New York City watershed asked a number of knowledge and attitude ques tions related to perceptions of national, local, and world population size. Considerable public ignorance of population size was revealed, w ith gender differences the most critical explanatory variable. Males w ere much more likely to respond to knowledge questions on population s ize, and to respond more accurately, even after several other characte ristics were held constant. However, knowledge is at best unrelated to measures of concern about population, and even shows a slight tendenc y to be associated with lower concern.