draft age more supportive of it than older men (51% to 45%). Support generally falls off as one moves through the neighborhoods from rich to poor (from 51% down to 37%), with pockets of exceptions—young men in the poorest barrios are the law's biggest supporters, for instance.

Women consistently oppose the draft through every age group, with the opposition rising as economic status falls. Young women are also more opposed than older women, which may reflect effective FSLN campaigns aimed at mothers whose sons are in the army. There is little social support for the young men's partners.

Moving to foreign policy issues, young people are more likely to blame the US or the contras for the war, with those in affluent neighborhoods taking this position most strongly. On thea Saturday and Sunday, 1,129 people in 70 Managua neighborhoods took part in the first independent public opinion poll in Nicaragua since 1979. The interviews took place in people's homes, face to face.

Those who took part were 16 years of age and older; while 18 is a more common polling minimum, in Nicaragua the age for voting and military draft is 16, and almost half the population is younger than 16. There were quotas for age and sex so that the distribution of those questions matched that of Managua.

The city was divided into five neighborhood types, chosen to represent the various social and economic classes, and the poll was then taken in 240 homes randomly chosen from each. The random sample was made using data from the National