Junk Statistics 10

Michel Souris

There are lies, d*mn lies, and... they're not all junk. 

BREXIT

From YouGov's post-referendum analysis: The most dramatic split is along the lines of education. 70% of voters whose educational attainment is only GCSE or lower voted to Leave, while 68% of voters with a university degree voted to Remain in the EU.

Brexit benefits:
£200 added to yearly household food bills
4/10 British farms forced to leave crops rotting in fields
£900bn in assets transferred out of the UK
330,000 fewer workers including 4,000 NHS doctors 

£billions trade lost
Empty shelves
Peace under threat in NI
Environment sacrificed
Red tape suffocating businesses
Food rotting in ground/HGVs
100k pigs to be killed
Roaming charges back
Beer shortage

UK exports to the EU are down 36%. (2021-01-16 Now 68%. 2021-02-06)

A more than tenfold rise in the price of cardboard since the start of the pandemic is sparking fears among small British companies that they will be unable to source boxes needed to send out products and parts to customers. Demand from Amazon and other online sellers, alongside disruption at the border and stockpiling caused by Brexit, has led to a national cardboard shortage. (Ft.com)

Stats prove that 50% of Brexit voters were comfortably off Boomers. Cry of the oppressed my arse. Moan of the elderly right wing middle classes more like. (Attila the Stockbroker. As a Boomer, I voted Remain.)

ALCOHOL

17 men a day die of alcohol-related health problems.
In the UK, one in five hospital admissions is the result of heavy drinking.

Hospital doctors see 150 women a week who have drunk so much they have put their lives in danger, says the Times. Last year 7,760 women needed treatment for alcoholic liver disease, of which 113 were under 30.

There were 7,423 deaths from alcohol misuse last year - a rise of 20% from 2019, the Office for National Statistics says, and the highest in 20 years. 

Studies have generally found that the more serious the crime or injuries, the more likely alcohol was involved. Fro example, a recent study showed that drinking offenders committed 15% of robberies, 26% of aggravated and simple assaults, and 37% of rapes and sexual assaults. (Greenfeld 1998, quoted in pubs.niaaa.nih.gov)

According to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, alcohol is a factor in 40% of violent crimes. (Vox.com. Both via @HamaramaDD)

Prohibition lasted for 13 years, but the reduction in alcohol consumption it induced lasted for around 70 years.

In France, average alcohol consumption has declined by 75% since the 1960s. 

EDUCATION

Liz Truss in her first Tory conference speech reminded people she was the first British PM to come from a comprehensive school.
Theresa May (private school, then from age 13 a state school)
Gordon Brown (state school)
John Major (state school)
Margaret Thatcher (state school)
James Callaghan (state school)
Harold Wilson (state school)
Edward Heath (state school)
Someone points out that most of the above went to grammar schools, not comprehensives.

Just 7% of Brits are privately educated yet 74% of the new cabinet are privately educated. (@Taj_Ali1)

NATURAL WORLD

There are normally three dog fatalities a year – last year there were 10.
Eight people a year are killed by cows, usually dog walkers. 

1,500+ dogs have been stolen during lockdown. (Policewoman on Countryfile)

The exotic pet trade is worth £15bn a year. People order sloths because they see sloth videos on the internet. (Via Simon Reeve)

EU states import around 4,000 tons of frogs’ legs every year, the limbs of as many as 200m frogs. (The Week. This is causing extinctions in parts of Asia and Eastern Europe.)

The UK imported 325 non-ivory elephant parts over the past 10 years, including 173 skins, 84 feet, 47 ears and 21 tails. Over 3/4 of the elephant parts imported were hunting trophies, with Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe being the most common countries of origin. (Guardian. The CITES ivory ban doesn’t mention other body parts.)

There are more trees on earth than stars in the Milky Way and even more neutrinos have passed through you while you read this. (@martinmbauer)

GENDER GAP

4% of women support gender-neutral toilets.

30% of women have said that they would give one year of their life to achieve their perfect body in shape and weight. 

98% of sexual assault is by men, women are 84% of the victims. 

Males were convicted of the vast majority of homicides at 89.5% of offenders, 98.9% of those arrested for rape, 79.7% of those arrested for offenses against family & children. (@g_lamarche)

Pictures by male artists sell for huge amounts more than pictures by women.

Women talk less than men, but men perceive equal speech division as women dominating conversations. (@cursesinvogue)

Around the world, women produce up to 80% of the food, despite globally owning just 20% of the land. (@Botanygeek James Wong)

Even in the US, with norms of monogamy that mean most adults are married at some point (two-thirds of American adults are married or cohabitating with a partner at any given moment), 18% of men over 55 do not have children, as opposed to 15% of women at that age. (Razib.substack.com. And marriage was going to disappear by about 1973, wasn’t it?)

The ‘norm’ of mum, dad and 2.5 kids is becoming less and less typical. (It's been said every year for the past 50.)

Fewer same-sex couples are getting married than ever before, says The Week 11 Aug 2022, even though marriage lowers your blood-sugar levels.

According to brokers Hargreaves Lansdown, the cost of living premium for being single comes in at an average £860 a month, factoring in typical expenses from rent and energy bills to groceries, wifi and TV subscriptions. (Guardian, 2023. Now add that up over a lifetime.)

Single adults make less money than those with partners, study finds. (Bloomberg, 2021)

Study from the University of Michigan shows that having a husband creates an extra seven hours of extra housework a week for women. (@g_lamarche)

Ofsted did not find that nine in 10 girls experience sexist name-calling or are sent explicit videos, as was widely reported. However, the evidence we have does suggest that sexual harassment and abuse are common in schools. (Fullfact.org)

What are the factors behind a 73% drop in teenage pregnancies in Ireland? Well, what do you know, better sex education and access to contraceptives. (@MaryMcAuliffe4)

Abortion in the US has dropped to record lows – lowest since abortion became legal in 1973. 

Teen pregnancy is the No. 1 cause of death for teen girls worldwide. (Feministcurrent.com)

Females underwent 92% of all procedures recorded by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons in 2018. (Times)

Women’s median hourly rate on average 10.2% less than men’s, compared with 9.3% in 2018. (Guardian, which suggests that the pay gap is still there, and widening.)

160 women and girls were killed in Canada in 2020. That's one every 2 and a half days. So, that's 160 women and girls. 0 trans people. (@dinahbrand2)

The best available figures show that in Europe trans people are 50% less likely to be murdered than the rest of the population- there is less than one per year in the UK – while somewhere between 160 and 180 women per year are violently killed. (Charliehebdo.fr)

Between 5% and 9% of trans have surgery. So it's between 91 and 93% that don't have surgery. (Via @roche_toni)

A letter to the BBC complaining about a “transphobic” article was signed by 16,000 people. (A check of the signatures revealed that they included threats, racism, a “Michel Souris” from Florida, and many who couldn’t be verified.)

75% of detransitioners don't go back to their clinicians. The 1% number is extremely outdated and refers to old studies on surgical regret only (not detransition) that don't reflect the current cohort of transitioners, some of which had more than 50% loss to follow-up. (@somenuancepls)

Don't trust this one: "6% of people are intersex and that 89% of trans people have considered taking their own life." 

More than 99% of live births are simply XX female and XY male. (@deekayzomb who seems to know what they’re talking about)

The Tavistock’s QC, Fenella Morris, [said] that many adults are happily asexual. (Times 2020. She’s a lawyer, not a doctor or statistician. )

SHOPPING

Customers are “casting off the trappings of a life in lockdown” with sales of loungewear velour tracksuits, jigsaw puzzles and wall-mounted desks all down, according to data from John Lewis. Sales of soup makers fell by 12% and bread bins were down 42%, in an indication that people are returning to eat lunch outside the home, said The Times. A spokesman for the retail chain said: “We’ve seen a profound shift in shopping behaviour.” (The Week Sept 2022)

A combination of lockdown and Bridgerton have boosted cross-stitch kit sales by 545% at Hobbycraft. (Guardian. That’s HAS boosted, unless you’re Molesworth – the subject of the sentence is "combination".)

1 in 10 homeowners have ditched real lawn for fake grass.

Marks & Spencer announced it would halve the number of outlets that sold suits, as in-store sales of formalwear had fallen by 72%. (2022-03-15)


IMMIGRATION

An article in The Sun claims that since 2018, two thirds of unaccompanied children claiming asylum in the UK were found to be adults. This is false, and is based on a misinterpretation of Home Office statistics. The real figure is around 20%. (Fullfact.org)

There are more Jewish people in Britain than the official total because people are wary of identifying themselves on official forms. 

The UK population seems to have fallen - by as much as one million - over the last year. Very small numbers of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants - many of whom are deported - do not add to the UK population in any meaningful way. (Otto English)

***

90% of America thinks the fact that they see more homelessness must mean crime is up (it's not). Meanwhile traffic deaths are increasing at a rate not seen in a century and no one outside of the bike/ped safety world has any idea. (@WarrenJWells)

40% of benefits claimants are in work. (BBC)

97% of the people in this country live on 6% of the land, the 94% is mostly owned by the aristocracy, the MOD, and the Royal family. (@the_fbpe)

70% of the land is still owned by the direct descendants of the people who were given it by William the Conqueror. (@JohnBoo85608696)

Many of us are subjected to online abuse almost daily. (Der Spiegel)

More than 75% of planned coal projects have been scrapped since 2015 (and the Paris Agreement). (theguardian.com)

13 per cent of the population of Adur and Worthing have never been to the beach. (Worthing Herald)

The average IQ score is 100. Approximately 68% of the world's population falls within the 85-115 range. (IQ Test Academy)

An article in the Sun claims cancel culture has “exploded” as 82% of people “first encountered” it in the past year. Research actually showed that roughly half of people said they had never heard or read the term. (Fullfact.org)

Of 10,000 university speaking events, six were cancelled: four due to defective paperwork, one because the speaker was a conman pyramid seller, and one because the speaker was Jeremy Corbyn – his rally moved to a larger venue. (Going the rounds 2021-02-19.) 

The latest figures from the Vatican show that there are 300,000 fewer nuns and priests in religious orders than there were 40 years ago, with a marked decline in Europe, the US and Oceania. (2021-03-02)

Seat belts in cars may have saved about 16,000 lives per year, and motorcyclists' helmets may have saved around 2,000 per year. (Via Richard Thompson)

Innocent smoothies contain 30% more sugar than a can of Coke. That is a fact. (@JamesUnfettered)

More here, and links to the rest.