Instability, uncertainty reigns as 2025 rolls on

The only certainty seems to be uncertainty these days.

We’re halfway through 2025, and slightly more than halfway through this decade, and instability has come to define this era so far. 

The 2020s kicked off with a global pandemic, followed by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the cost-of-living crisis and ongoing instability in the Middle East. By late last year almost three in four (71% on average across 33 countries) were optimistic this year would be better than the last.

There was hope for calm after the storms. 

But, U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20 signaled this, too, was going to be a year marked by instability. 

Below, we look at the mood around the world as the first half of 2025 winds down and the second half ramps up.

1. The Trump Effect. The New America has cast a large red-white-and-blue shadow over politics, elections and economies around the world as of late.

Trump’s annexation and tariff threats riled people up everywhere from Sydney, Australia, to Sydney, Nova Scotia, and arguably helped now-Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney get elected and eased the path to re-election of Australian PM Anthony Albanese. Meanwhile, in Germany, centre-right leader Friedrich Merz emerged as the country’s new chancellor after the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s left-leaning coalition.

Despite Make America Great Again (MAGA)-imbued ideologies hurting some campaigns the sixth edition of the Ipsos Populism Report finds long-held populist sentiments aren’t going anywhere, nor are many of the politicians who rose to prominence over the past decade or so.

And, though recent elections in Romania and in Poland yielded different results, both show there’s still a strong appetite for populist politicians with anti-European Union (EU) leanings. A possible election in France and a definite election in Chile this fall are set to be the next to test to whether the anti-incumbent wave has crested or not as the feeling that society is broken persists.

2. Us vs. Them. Amid the ongoing feeling by a majority that things are broken is the belief by some that immigration is off the rails.

Anti-immigration sentiment, stoked in the lead-up to the Brexit vote and Trump’s first presidential campaign back in 2016, has waxed and waned since. It’s once again become a flashpoint across the U.K. recently, with Reform UK and its leader Nigel Farage having the highest trust of Britons when it comes to immigration reform. And less than year after Keir Starmer was elected U.K. Prime Minister, Farage’s Reform party now has a record nine-percentage-point lead over Starmer’s Labour Party.

“The public were largely dissatisfied with the previous Conservative government’s performance on immigration, and now that Labour have been in government for nearly a year the public are largely dissatisfied with their performance as well,” says Glenn Gottfried, Associate Director, Public Affairs, for Ipsos in the UK. “The fact that Reform is consistently talking about immigration off the perceived failures of the mainstream parties resonates with voters who feel that Brexit has not adequately addressed their concerns about immigration.”

Immigration has also been a focus of populist leaders everywhere from Germany to the United States lately, with supporters of Trump’s Republican party more likely than other Americans to currently consider immigration a key issue for their country.

“Our data tells us that Americans are nuanced on the issue of immigration and deportation; many do not like how the Trump administration is going about deportation,” says Mallory Newall, Vice President, Public Affairs, for Ipsos in the U.S. “Furthermore, there are huge partisan divides on the topic, making this one of the biggest political cleavages of current society.”

Zooming out to a global level, the proportion who agree “when jobs are scarce, employers should prioritize hiring people of this country over immigrants” is up seven points to 60% (on average across 31 countries) compared to 2016. And the proportion who agree immigrants take jobs away from “real people” from their country rose to 42% over the past nine years (on average globally, +8 pp), as did sentiment that their country would be stronger if it stopped immigration (44%, +12 pp).

3. It’s the Economy ... Political strategist James Carville is fond of pointing out “it’s the economy, stupid” is often at the root of a nation’s mood and, ultimately, election wins and losses.

In these deeply uncertain times concerns about economic issues remain top of mind.

Even though inflation technically peaked in several countries in 2022 the issue is still a leading concern in our What Worries the World monitor, with poverty/social inequality and unemployment worries not far behind.  

The fine print of Trump’s economic policies have, and continue to change, since “Liberation Day” on April 2 but many are worried his moves will have a negative impact on the global economy (61% on average across 29 countries), their country’s economy (58%) and their personal financial situation (41%).

The mood, despite initial hopes this year would be better, has remained relatively gloomy. Almost two in three in five (63% on average across 31 countries) say their country is on the wrong track, essentially unchanged from 62% in 2024. And 62% now say the current economic situation in their country is bad, barely budging from the 64% who said the same this time last year.

4. Gen Z Divisions. Some younger men and women have reacted quite differently to coming of age in such tumultuous times.

Generation Z* females are leaning more liberal than their male peers, as well as older cohorts, on everything from women’s equality to climate change to a range of LGBT+ issues.

For example, Gen Z women are once again the most likely cohort to be in favor of companies/brands actively promoting equality for LGBT people, with 58% supporting this with 34% of  Gen Z men the least likely to support this marketing move. The large gaps within generations appears to lessen with age, for example there’s a mere three-point difference on support for Pride marketing between Baby Boomer men and women.

Ipsos’s ongoing generations work will be keeping an eye on whether younger men and women will continue to diverge on several social issues as Gen Zers mature.

5. The Future’s Not Ours to See. How the rest of 2025 will unfold for everyone from fresh-faced students to seasoned seniors around the world isn’t known yet.

Anxiety hangs in the air.

Reports of artificial intelligence (AI) eliminating jobs, in particular entry-level roles,  have increased lately. Amid the predicted “white-collar bloodbath” one in three (36% on average across 30 countries) think it’s likely AI will replace their job in the next five years, with Gen Zers (45%) more concerned than their older peers (Millennials, 39%; Gen Xers, 30%; Boomers, 24%).

At the same time the details, and the ultimate fallout, from Trump’s tariff war remains fuzzy, but what’s clear from our polling is different age groups are seeing the likely impact on their lives quite differently.

While half (50% on average across 30 countries) of Gen Zers expect their personal financial situation to be stronger six months from now, just 17% of Boomers feel the same. 

Despite more confidence in their future personal finances, working-age people (Gen Zers, 21%;Millennials, 19%; Gen Xers, 17%) are more likely than older people at or near retirement (Boomers, 12%) to predict they and/or someone in their family, or someone else they know personally, will lose their job in the next six months as a result of economic conditions.

The young, though, remain fairly optimistic.

Two in three Gen Zers (66% on average globally) expect the overall quality of their life to be much better in five years than it is now. Belief that one’s quality of life will markedly improve falls with age to 57% among Millennials, 48% of Gen Xers and 34% of Boomers.

What lies ahead for the second half of this year, and the second half of this decade, will be known soon enough — one thing is certain: the calm hasn’t come after the many storms quite yet.

How people across regions and generations will be impacted, and react, to whatever comes next remains to be seen. Buckle up.

• Sign up for Ipsos’ Keys: Unchartered Territory webinar on July 10 for more insights on what’s been and what’s yet to come in 2025.

*Generation Z (born between 1996-2012), Millennials (born between 1980-1995), Generation X (born between 1966-1979) and Baby Boomers (born between 1945-1965).

Melissa Dunne is a senior data journalist with Ipsos and is based in Canada.