Support for independence in Catalonia according to the language of identity and other variables (2011-2015)

Abstract

The Center for Opinion Studies of the Government of Catalonia has prepared over the years numerous surveys focused on the voting population, allowing us to study, among other issues, the attitudes of the population of Catalonia towards the relations between Catalonia and Spain in general and towards independence in particular. This paper begins with a review of the representativeness of the samples of these surveys, which leads the authors to reweigh the data. The resulting data are used to analyze the attitudes under study, from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. In common with other authors, an attempt is made to analyze the factors serving to explain the sharp increase in support for independence which has beenregistered in the last five years, with a focus here on linguistic factors. Thus, the main objective is to validate the hypothesis of the importance of the language of identity in explaining the support for independence among the different social sectors. To do this the authors compare the relationship between support for independence and the language of identity and two other variables, family geographical origin and age, while also taking national identity into consideration.

Keywords: language of identity, national identity, family geographical origin, age, Catalan, Spanish, independence, survey methodology.