Russians slightly less confident about long-term future than before – poll

(Interfax – Moscow, 1 November) The majority of Russians are trying to plan their lives (60 per cent), but mainly over the short term (43 per cent), and 39 per cent of those polled are not inclined to plan for the future, sociologists have found.

Among the groups most likely to try to plan for the future are young Russians (68 per cent), people living in medium-sized cities (68 per cent) and people who are well-off (74 per cent). As a rule, older people do not make plans (51 per cent), experts from VTsIOM (the state-funded All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public Opinion) told Interfax as they presented the findings of their nationwide poll.

According to their data, confidence in the future is waning among Russians. The index for this has fallen over the last six months from minus 7 to minus 11. This trend is being sustained by a steady reduction in the proportion of people who feel confident about the future (from 45 per cent to 43 per cent) and an increase in the number of Russians who feel the opposite way (from 52 per cent to 54 per cent).

Polling 1,600 people in 138 towns and villages in 46 regions, territories and republics across Russia, the sociologists found that it is mostly young people (58 per cent), people living in large cities (51 per cent) and the well-off (55 per cent) who feel calm about their future. Older people (63 per cent) and Russians in the middle income bracket (61 per cent) do not feel confident about the future.