New research from SSRS finds that American adults have generally positive attitudes about birthday celebrations. Our latest survey explores traditional birthday celebrations in more detail, including:
- At what age should people stop making a big deal about celebrating their own birthdays?
- If someone threw you a surprise party for your next birthday, how would you feel?
- The Happy Birthday Song: Love it or hate it?
- Which classic cake and icing flavors are favored? Piece of cake!
These findings are part of an SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus poll conducted November 15 – 16, 2024, among a nationally representative sample of 1,008 adults aged 18 and older.
U.S. adults have generally positive attitudes about birthday celebrations.
Large majorities believe that birthdays for family members, close friends, and themselves are worthy of celebrating. Nearly half believe that coworkers’ and pets’ birthdays are worth celebrating.
For each of these types of birthdays, women are more likely than men to say they are worth celebrating. Majorities of both men and women believe family members’, close friends’, and their own birthdays are worth celebrating; but while majorities of women believe coworkers’ and pets’ birthdays are worth celebrating, a majority of men do not.
Adults aged 18-29 are more likely than adults aged 65+ (56% to 33%) to believe that a pet’s birthday is worthy of celebration.
When asked at what age people should stop making a big deal about celebrating their own birthdays, a majority of U.S. adults say “never.”
Another 14% think they should stop at sometime age 50 or over, 14% at sometime age 22-29, and 17% at ages 21 or under.
Women are more likely than men (67% to 43%) to believe people should never stop making a big deal about celebrating their own birthdays. Men are more likely than women (26% to 9%) to believe people should stop at ages 21 or under, although a plurality of men say people should never stop.
Most U.S. adults (86%) would be very or somewhat happy if someone threw them a surprise party for their next birthday.
Women are more likely than men (56% to 44%) to say they would be very happy. A majority of adults aged 18-29 (62%) and 30-49 (53%) would be very happy to have a surprise birthday party thrown for them, compared to 41% of adults aged 65+. Black adults (69%) and Hispanic adults (62%) are more likely than white adults (43%) to say they would be very happy.
Nearly three-fourths of U.S. adults (73%) say they love it or like it when people sing “Happy Birthday” to them.
Women are more likely than men (32% to 15%) to say they love it. Men are more likely than women (32% to 22%) to say they dislike or hate it when people sing “Happy Birthday” to them.
Which classic cake and icing flavors are favored? Piece of cake!
When U.S. adults were asked which of four types of cakes (combinations of chocolate and vanilla cake and icing) they prefer, the two most popular combinations are chocolate cake with chocolate icing (33%) and vanilla cake with vanilla icing (30%). The latter combination is especially popular among Black adults (preferred by 46%).
Altogether, U.S. adults are nearly evenly divided on whether they prefer chocolate or vanilla cake, and whether they prefer chocolate or vanilla icing. But when it comes to icing, a majority of White adults (55%) prefer chocolate icing, while a majority of Black (69%) and Hispanic adults (56%) prefer vanilla icing.
Thinking about their own birthdays over the last five years, 32% of American adults say they have had a birthday cake every year.
Methodology
These findings are part of an SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus poll conducted November 15-16, 2024, among a nationally representative sample of 1,008 adults aged 18 and older. The margin of error for total respondents is +/- 3.6 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The design effect is 1.36. View the questions used for this analysis, along with the responses >>. The data was analyzed by SSRS contributor, John M. Benson.
John M. Benson is a public opinion researcher, academic writer, and editor with over thirty years’ experience examining public attitudes about health policy and other domestic policy issues. He has directed numerous national and international polling projects leading to more than 100 publications in New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs, JAMA, Public Opinion Quarterly, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Public Health Reports, Milbank Quarterly, Social Science Research, and other domestic policy and polling journals. He is also co-author of American Public Opinion and Health Care (CQ Press).
The SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus is a national, twice-per-month, probability-based survey. All SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus data are weighted to represent the target population of U.S. adults ages 18 or older.
The SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus is conducted on the SSRS Opinion Panel. SSRS Opinion Panel members are recruited randomly based on a nationally representative ABS (Address Based Sample) design (including Hawaii and Alaska). ABS respondents are randomly sampled by Marketing Systems Group (MSG) through the U.S. Postal Service’s Computerized Delivery Sequence File (CDS), a regularly updated listing of all known addresses in the U.S. For the SSRS Opinion Panel, known business addresses are excluded from the sample frame.
The SSRS Opinion Panel is a multi-mode panel (web and phone). Most panelists take self-administered web surveys; however, the option to take surveys conducted by a live telephone interviewer is available to those who do not use the internet as well as those who use the internet but are reluctant to take surveys online. All sample drawn for this study were SSRS Opinion Panelists who are U.S. adults ages 18 or older. Sample was selected to ensure representation by age, gender, race and ethnicity, education, Census region, and party identification. Possible sources of non-sampling error include non-response bias, as well as question wording and ordering effects.
About SSRS
SSRS is breaking the mold on what research companies can do. A full-service market and survey research firm, we use the latest data collection best practices and apply cutting-edge survey methodologies backed by insight from our industry-leading team. We have genuine enthusiasm for our work and a shared goal to connect people through research. Our solutions include groundbreaking approaches fit for purpose: the SSRS Opinion Panel, Encipher, SSRS Virtual Insights, the SSRS Text Message panel, and more. Our research areas focus on Health Care and Health Policy, Public Opinion and Policy, Political and Election Polling, Consumer and Lifestyle, and Sports and Entertainment.
Media Contact: Karin Bandoian | SSRS Vice President of Brand and Creative Strategy
