The ongoing economic crisis appears to be having a negative influence on the global public’s judgment of progress on economic wellbeing, according to our latest global polling.
When asked to evaluate the state of progress on societal challenges over the last twenty years, people across 22 countries were more likely to feel that environmental protection and creating healthier and more equitable societies had got better over that period than felt the same way about improved economic wellbeing, which nearly as many felt had got worse (36%) as felt it had improved (39%).
These findings suggest that current socioeconomic difficulties may be making it difficult for citizens to perceive the widespread increase in living standards over the last two decades, which has been particularly marked in middle-income countries such as Brazil, India and China. Not surprisingly, these are the three countries most likely to perceive an improvement in economic wellbeing over the period, while troubled European and North American economies, particularly Greece, are the least likely.
The findings are drawn from The Regeneration Roadmap, GlobeScan and SustainAbility’s collaboration aimed at generating a roadmap for sustainable development over the coming years.
Finding from The Regeneration Roadmap, 2012
This post was written by former GlobeScan Research Director, Sam Mountford.
