Sub-Saharan Africa Dominates Top 10 List of Countries With Highest Negative Experiences Worldwide
24 Junio 2024 - 11:01PM
Business Wire
The Gallup Global Emotions 2024 Report offers a snapshot from
Gallup’s latest measurements of people’s positive and negative
daily experiences. The findings are based on nearly 146,000
interviews with adults in 142 countries and areas in 2023.
Gallup’s Positive and Negative Experience Indexes measure life’s
intangibles — feelings and emotions — that traditional economic
indicators such as GDP were never intended to capture. Each index
provides a real-time snapshot of people’s daily experiences,
offering leaders insights into the health of their societies that
they cannot gather from economic measures alone.
Guinea Leads the World on Negative Emotions
Among the top 10 countries with the highest negative experiences
worldwide, more than half were from sub-Saharan Africa. Following
Guinea are Chad, scoring second highest on the index with a 51,
Sierra Leone (50) and Democratic Republic of the Congo (49), with
Liberia (47) and Benin and Comoros (both 45) further down the
list.
On a global level, Gallup’s Negative Experience Index declined
for the first time since 2014. All five negative emotions that make
up the index fell between 2022 and 2023, but stress levels dropped
the most. Thirty-seven percent of the world felt stressed in 2023,
down three percentage points from the previous year, but notably
remaining well above where it was a decade ago (33%) and the years
before that.
Emotional experiences varied greatly across regions. Some
countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including Gambia (down 15 points)
and Eswatini (down 11 points), saw double-digit declines in
stress.
Guinea, which continues to grapple with uncertainty after a
military coup in 2021, scored the highest in the world on the index
in 2023 with a 53. Majorities in Guinea were sad, stressed, worried
and in pain. Stress skyrocketed to record levels, rising 10 points
between 2022 and 2023.
As in past years, people in many of the countries and areas with
the highest negative scores in 2023 were contending with economic
and political turmoil or military conflict. For example, in Sierra
Leone, which scored 50, people witnessed failed alleged coup
attempts after their election earlier in the year.
Senegal Was the Sole African Country With Highest Positive
Emotions
Globally, however, 2023 was still a better year for the world’s
emotional health. Positive experiences rebounded to their
pre-pandemic levels, completing the recovery that started in 2022.
Most of the improvement on the index in 2023 occurred among those
aged 30 and older.
The Positive Experience Index is a measure of experienced
wellbeing on the day before the survey. Questions provide a
real-time measure of respondents’ positive experiences. It is based
on people's responses to five questions about positive experiences
they had the day before the survey. Higher scores indicate that
more of the population reported experiencing these emotions, and
lower scores indicate the opposite.
Senegal was the sole African country on the top 10 list of
countries with its score of 82, but it was not the first time the
country appeared here: It also made the top of the list in 2021.
More than three in four Senegalese said they experienced enjoyment
during a lot of the previous day. About nine in 10 people in
Senegal reported smiling or laughing a lot during the previous day
and seven in 10 reported feeling well-rested. More than nine in 10
reported feeling treated with respect.
Sierra Leone (56) was among the countries with the lowest
positive experience scores in the world, on par with Ukraine and
Bangladesh. Ethiopia (55) also made this list.
The World Learned Something in 2023
For almost two decades, the percentage of people worldwide who
said they learned or did something interesting the previous day has
seldom topped 50%. The 54% who did so in 2023 represents a new
record high.
Senegalese ranked No. 1 on this measure, with 79% in 2023 saying
they learned or did something interesting, like the 77% who said so
in 2022. In the region, half of people said the same in Sierra
Leone and Republic of the Congo, close to reported rates in Chad
and Democratic Republic of the Congo (49%). But far fewer had the
same opportunity in Ethiopia (33%).
About Gallup
Gallup delivers analytics and advice to help leaders and
organizations solve their most pressing problems. Combining more
than 80 years of experience with its global reach, Gallup knows
more about the attitudes and behaviors of employees, customers,
students and citizens than any other organization in the world.
About Gallup World Poll
The Gallup World Poll is the most comprehensive and
farthest-reaching survey of the world. The survey connects with
more than 99% of the world's adult population through annual,
nationally representative surveys with comparable metrics across
countries. The Gallup World Poll is used to measure and track
progress on several U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and is the
official statistic for work and life for more than 55 indexes and
metrics associated with the most important aspects of individuals’
lives, their communities and their countries.
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Riada_akyol@gallup.com