India notches up 2nd rank in optimism with further surge in optimism in May: Ipsos What Worries the World global survey

India has notched up 2nd place in optimism, moving up one rank from the earlier 3rd rank, dislodging Indonesia from the 2nd spot to 3rd. India has also shown improvement in its scores, with 78% (+5%) urban Indians believing India is moving in the right direction. Singapore continued to hold onto its top spot (80%) and Indonesia was placed 3rd (74%) in the pecking order. Countries most pessimistic about their future were Peru (15%), Netherlands (21%) and South Africa (22%) with fewer citizens believing their country is headed in the right direction. Global citizens continued to display status quo with only 38% being optimistic about the future.

These are the findings of the Ipsos Global Advisor What Worries the World survey that tracks public opinion on the most important social and political issues across 29 countries, covering 25,302 adults, apart from the direction of travel, of how confident citizens are about their country and its future.     

Despite the optimism, citizens were seen to be worried about certain macro issues, across all markets covered in the survey. 

Local worries

For Indians, unemployment (44%) pipped inflation (41%) to emerge the biggest worry in May. The other top worries emerging were financial/ political corruption (27%), poverty and social inequality (23%), education (22%) and crime and violence (22%). 

Amit Adarkar, CEO, Ipsos India, elucidating on the findings of the survey said, "As a country, India has withstood the headwinds of global occurrences – whether it is the pandemic, or the two wars (Ukraine and Israel) or the global economic slowdown. Our economy has shown resilience largely riding on domestic consumption. India also has a fairly younger working population, contributing to the demographic dividend. Worryingly, unemployment has emerged the topmost worry in May displacing inflation, despite hiring looking up. India needs to create more jobs as demand far outstrips supply. Though cost of living, corruption, social inequality are some of the other issues that rankle citizens. Ipsos What Worries the World survey has been month on month cautioning local govts on the issues faced by citizens for govts to prioritize them and mitigate their impact."   

Global worries

Global citizens on the other hand were beset with inflation (34%), poverty and social inequality (30%), crime and violence (30%), unemployment (27%) and financial/ political corruption (26%).