90% of Children have learnt new Vocabulary in harsh Economic Climate

A recent survey by iReach Market Research has shown that children’s vocabulary has been expanded to include recession related terminology. 90% of the Irish offspring’s vocabulary has been affected by the prolonged gloom and doom of the Irish economy. It also appears that the bigger the families the greater impact the recession has on children’s use of economic related words. 81% of parents with 2 children and 94% of parents with 3 or more children state this is the case. 80% of single child families stated that their child did pick up or use any of the recession-related vocabulary.

Due to the extensive media coverage and general economic discussions at home, almost 3 in 10 (27%) parents say that the word “recession” has entered their child’s vocabulary. “Unemployment” is the second most popular word, being used by every fifth child in Ireland (20%) with respect to the country’s economy. Other words commonly pronounced by Irish children include “credit crunch” (16%), “redundancy” (15%), “NAMA” (15%), “mortgage” (13%) and “interest rates” (10%). The words less commonly used by Irish children would include “negative equity” (7%), “overdrawn” (6%), “recessionista” (1%), “staycation” (1%).

This is at a time when related findings from an on going monthly tracker survey by iReach of economic sentiment has shown that the overall mood among Irish consumers dipped in March and has returned to pre-budget levels of last year. At the start of 2010 iReach saw improvements in positive sentiment on the outlook for the Irish economy. March has seen significant economic announcements such as the costs of NAMA to Irish taxpayers and the concerns about significant funding to save Anglo Irish Bank which have had a dramatic effect on the economic sentiment of the Irish customer.

March has witnessed a significantly ‘hit’ on positive sentiment amongst the Irish public towards the economy when compared the overall sentiment we saw in February 2010: 46% of Irish adults (up from 30% a month ago) think the economy is getting worse – this represents a 53% month on month increase in negative sentiment. 30% of Irish consumers (down from 41% in February) felt the economic situation is bad but has stabilised. 22% of respondents (down from 26% in February) agreed that while the economic situation is bad, it is showing clear signs of recovery.