Safer but unhappy: Gallup’s survey reveals global emotional decline despite rising security - Video
73% of people worldwide say they feel safe walking alone at night, a marked improvement from 65% when tracking began two decades ago, according to Gallup’s latest data.
However, rates of worry, stress, anger, and sadness have all climbed sharply since 2006, with 39% of respondents in 2024 saying they felt “a lot of worry” the previous day, up from just 30% when Gallup first started measuring emotional health.
While COVID-19 intensified the emotional strain, Gallup’s findings show that this trend predates the pandemic. The causes, researchers say, vary across regions, but one theme keeps emerging about technology and polarisation.
"So, if we look at things like the rates of worry, 39% of the people we interviewed in 2024 reported that they experienced a lot of worry the day before. When we first started tracking that data in 2006, it was only at 30% and so 9% of the global population is a big portion. And we see similar patterns for the other emotions —stress, physical pain, anger, and sadness — over that time frame. With a lot of those gains really coming in the last few years, and it's something that troubles me when I look at this data," Dan Foy thr Global Research Director at Gallup, told Global South World.
In many regions, particularly post-Soviet Eurasia, perceptions of safety have doubled over the last 20 years.
These are countries that have undergone significant political and social transformations, moving from instability toward greater structure and governance.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the sense of safety has slipped, from 58% to 53%, and in Latin America and the Caribbean, only half of the population says they feel safe walking alone at night.
With this paradox, the world has a long way to go in achieving a balance between the safety and emotional health of its people.
Watch the full interview attached to the story for more insight.
This story is written and edited by the Global South World team, you can contact us here.
