India bucks global trend of pessimism: Ipsos Survey

Majority of urban Indians continue to trudge forward with optimism  – at least 72% urban Indians believe that India is headed in the right direction (same as last wave, no deviation); global citizens, on the contrary are quite downbeat, with at least 61% (though improved by 4%, was 65% in the last wave) believing that they are on the wrong track.

Markets – Right direction Vs Wrong track

We delved deeper to identify the markets that are most optimistic about the future and the ones that feel their future is bleak: China (93%), Saudi Arabia (82%) and India (72%) are the most positive. While South Africa (15%), Italy (17%) and Spain (21%) are the most negative about the prospects of their country. 

What Worries Indians?

Optimism of Indians, notwithstanding, there are issues bothering Indians (and global citizens as well). Top 3 issues bothering Indians remain the same as last month – Unemployment (49%, +1), Financial/ Political Corruption (39%, same) and Crime & Violence (28%, -3). Compared to previous round (Aug 2019), in Sept 2019, Unemployment has moved up by 1 point, financial/ political corruption has remained the same as Aug and Crime and Violence has reduced by 3 points in Sept. 

Top niggling global issues are the same as last month – Unemployment (33%, +1), Crime & Violence (31%, -1), and Financial/ Political Corruption (31%, same).

Notably, top 3 issues that bother Indians, the same set of issues bother global citizens as well (though not in the same order). We further dug deeper to identify top markets by each of these issues. 

“Urban Indians have faith in the overall trajectory for the country and overall there is a sense of optimism among citizens. At the same time, joblessness, graft and lawlessness continue to perturb them. With the recent slowdown in manufacturing, it would be interesting to see what the actual impact on the job market would be,” said Amit Adarkar, CEO, Ipsos India & Operations Director, Ipsos APEC (Asia Pacific Excluding China).  

Top 3 issues and markets most affected/ concerned 

Unemployment & Jobs – South Africa (64%), Italy (62%), South Korea (58%), Spain (56%), Argentina (49%) and India (49%).

Financial & Political Corruption – Peru (60%), South Africa (60%), Russia (53%), Hungary (52%), Malaysia (48%), South Korea (45%), Serbia (42%), Chile (39%), India (39%) and Spain (39%).

Crime & Violence – Mexico (65%), South Africa (65%), Peru (61%), Sweden (54%), Chile (49%), Brazil (43%), Great Britain (40%), Malaysia (39%), Serbia (36%), Argentina (35%), Germany (32%), US (32%), Australia (30%) and India (28%). 

Methodology

The survey is conducted monthly in 28 countries around the world via the Ipsos Online Panel system. The countries included are Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, France, Great Britain, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States of America.

For the results of the survey presented herein, an international sample of 19,531 adults aged 18-74 in the US, South Africa, Turkey, Israel and Canada, and age 16-74 in all other countries, were interviewed between August 23rd 2019 and September 6th 2019. Approximately 1000+ individuals participated on a country by country basis via the Ipsos Online Panel.

The precision of Ipsos online polls are calculated using a credibility interval with a poll of 1,000 accurate to +/- 3.1 percentage points and of 500 accurate to +/- 4.5 percentage points. For more information on the Ipsos use of credibility intervals, please visit the Ipsos website.

Weighting has been employed to balance demographics and ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the adult population according to the most recent country census data.

A survey with an unweighted probability sample of this size would have an estimated margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points for a sample of 1,000 and an estimated margin of error of +/- 4.5 percentage points for a 500 sample 19 times out of 20.