Chart: Asia is the most optimistic part of the world
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Version 0 of 1. The chart above, part of a slew of new data released by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, reflects one of the results of a survey regarding the population moods in a range of countries around the world. Populations in developing countries in Asia and Africa are far more optimistic about their future than their Middle East equivalents. The survey was conducted in 43 countries among 47,643 respondents from March 17 to June 5, 2014. All respondents were surveyed on where they thought they were perched on "the ladder of life." Respondents had been asked a similar question by Pew in 2007. Respondents in "emerging" and "developing" countries -- the latter a term for countries poorer than those in the former category -- were also asked other questions, including one regarding where they think they will be five years from now. An overwhelming majority of Asians, as you can see above, looked on their future prospects with optimism. As the third chart shows, in the intervening seven years since Pew last conducted this survey, life satisfaction in the developing world is catching up to that which we see in what Pew terms "advanced" economies. We are, after all, on the other side of a global recession that hit the West hard, in particular, and led to deepening pessimism in countries where austerity measures trimmed services and soaring youth unemployment narrowed horizons. What's also worth noting about Asia's general optimism is that it's not restricted to countries known for their dynamic or robust economies. In two of the charts above -- which show the data for respondents polled on whether their lives have improved in the past five years and how they see their lives five years from now -- Bangladesh tops the Asia list. The South Asian nation is still mostly discussed in the West in the context of tragic labor conditions and the " target="_blank">toll of climate change. In fact, as this final chart shows, Pew stresses that there's no direct correlation between the wealth of a society and the personal well-being of its population. You can see the full report here. |