The FINANCIAL — A recent global poll tells us that Georgians are equally worried about social and economic problems, which places them right in the middle of a continuum in which poor and emerging nations worry most about ‘social disorder” and wealthy nations worry more about ‘economic pains’.
These data come from this year’s barometer of hope and despair, conducted from September to December of 2012, and include responses from more than 57,000 men and women in 56 countries. Each respondent was asked what they believe to be the most important problem facing the world today. The most common answers either fell under “social worries,” such as corruption, crime, or wars, or “economic worries,” such as poverty or unemployment. Resulting data show sharp differences in perceptions about the most important problem of the world in 2013.
To more easily discuss the data, each country is given an index score in which respondents who were concerned primarily with economic problems are subtracted from those who are more worried about social instability. The resulting numbers show the relative concerns of each country’s population, which sharply differ based on wealth and geography.
Those countries with positive indices, such as Brazil (54), are more worried socially, and those with negative indices (Spain, -63) are economically concerned. The global average (0 exactly) illustrates just how divided the world is about their problem predictions.
The top 10 nations who see social disorder as more important than economic worries include Brazil, Malaysia, Philippines, Afghanistan, Russia, Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia. The average per capita income for this group is around 12,000 US dollars, nearly the same as the global average. It is also notable that 7 out of these 10 are Muslim-majority countries, perhaps reflecting the still-developing shifts in power and stability throughout the Middle East.
The top 10 nations who see ‘Economic Worries’ as more important than ‘social disorder’ are: Spain, Czech Republic, Italy, Portugal, US, Ireland, Romania, Bosnia, France and Poland. As a group these nations are generally wealthy, with an average per capita income considerably higher than the world’s average: around 28,000 US dollars. It is also notable that 9 out of 10 are European nations, whose most recent serious problem was an economic collapse.
You can frame these differences a variety of different ways, but one approach seems to sit at each edge. On one end, this dichotomy could emerge from a sort of national-level Maslow hierarchy, in which social stability is a more base need than economic growth. It could be that Europeans feel generally secure in their social well-being, and so can be concerned with economics, while Arabs cannot to worry about starting businesses until they establish social stability.
A less reductive option sitting at the other end of the continuum would be a situational one. Had the Arab spring never sprung, a number of the “most socially worried” countries may have been more worried about their job security in 2013; had the global economy not unraveled so dramatically five years ago, Europeans might now have been more worried about crime and “the drug problem.”
In reality, we know that political processes are more complicated and interactive than either of these two options suggest. If Europe’s economic worries continue, it may very well give rise to social instability; we’ve already seen more European parliamentary seats go to extreme political parties than in previous decades. Furthermore, national political or social instabilities might find solutions in a strengthening economy or a new oil well discovery.
In general the error margin for surveys of this kind is +3-5% at 95% confidence level. Visit our website at gorbi.com for more articles.
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