Survey puts Brazil as the leader in optimism among 36 countries

In a year that begins under fears of global recession and concerns about war and the environment, Brazil stands out as a population with confidence on the rise.

This is what a survey promoted by the Ipsos institute shows: among 36 nations, the country leads the ranking of confidence that 2023 will be better than the previous year.

According to the survey conducted between the end of October and the beginning of November, 85% of Brazilians, or eight out of ten, said they are optimistic that 2023 will be better than 2022.

One thousand interviews were conducted in the country.

Brazil is tied with Mexico in this aspect. Still, it is the only country in the sample that saw an increase in the percentage of people more optimistic about the year starting – a rise of three percentage points, against a decrease of five points in the Latin neighbors.

As a result, the country gained nine positions in the last ranking, with China at the top.

The Asian giant fell two positions, with 83% of the Chinese saying they are optimistic – a drop of 11 percentage points.

According to the chief executive of Ipsos in Brazil, Marcos Calliari, this result partially reflects Brazilians’ current confidence.

Another indicator from the institute, which measures consumer confidence in 34 countries, has been growing uninterruptedly since November 2021 and reached 52 points in December, the highest level in 60 months.

“The current situation influences the perception about the following year,” he says.

The second point is that the country has just gone through an electoral cycle. Naturally, optimism grows after events like these.

“Also in the other survey, when we asked if the respondent believes that the economy is on the right track, the percentage of those who believe so in Brazil rose six points in just two months, something not trivial,” he comments.

He ponders, however, that some things need to be discounted. One is the well-known “optimistic bias” of Brazilians, which causes the country to always appear above the world average in surveys of this kind.

The second is the fact that the period of the survey was still affected by measures with a more specific impact, such as the Auxílio Brasil of R$600, expansion of consigned credit, and deflation caused by the dismissal of fuels.

The rest of the world starts 2023 more negative, the survey shows.

The percentage of those who expect a better year than the previous one fell from 77% to 65%, the lowest level in ten years.

Among the most pessimistic are the Japanese, with 36%, and the Belgians and French, both with 44%.

Confidence in the economy also fell to its lowest level in a decade. For 46% of those interviewed, it will be stronger than it was in 2022. In the previous survey, this figure was 61%.

People are more fearful that prices in their countries will grow faster than their income (79%, up four percentage points) and that stock markets will suffer some sharp decline this year (50%, up 15 points).

When asked about unemployment, 68% said it would rise in their countries this year. For 74%, interest rates will also be higher, and for 75%, inflation will also be higher.

In these two issues, Brazilians also stand out. The country is in last place among those who foresee higher inflation and unemployment, with 50% and 41%, respectively.

But it is not only the economy that afflicts the global population. Regarding the geopolitical and security scenario, the percentage of people who believe that a nuclear weapon could be used in some conflict around the world grew 14 percentage points, from 34% to 48% – in 25 countries, this percentage grew more than ten points.

The share who said they believe foreign hacker attacks could damage government structures rose six points to 44%. O

Only 40% said the Ukraine war would end this year.

“You have to consider that at the end of 2021, everyone believed that the world would get better. The expectation was that the pandemic would end, but it didn’t. And then there was the war in Ukraine, which strongly affected confidence in some regions, and inflation became a problem again in several countries,” reminds Calliari.

Pessimism in the world also grew when the subject is the environment: 65% of those interviewed said they believe their country will have to live with more extreme weather events this year, up five percentage points. No less than 57% believe 2023 will be the hottest year in history.

The Ipsos survey interviewed 24.4 thousand people in 36 countries, with questionnaires sent via the internet.