According to Russian assessments, the major Russia’s problems are mainly located in economy.
MOSCOW, October 7, 2016. Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VCIOM) presents the data of the survey describing what problems Russians think are the most important for the country, and how they perceive the situation in economy and other sectors.
Low salaries (15%) and economic difficulties (14%) are still at the top of the country’s problem rating (based on the open-ended questions); however, whereas the share of those who mention the former has been increasing since the beginning of the year and reached its annual high, on the contrary, the share of the latter reached bottom in August and September 2016. The top five major anxieties include also inflation (12%) and unemployment (12%).
More and more Russians are worried about the health issues this year: this problem has held the third position for the second consecutive month. Today the share of such respondents makes up 12% and hit its annual maximum in August (13%), whereas a year ago the problem was mentioned by 7% of respondents. Every tenth also cites education (10%), social policies (9%), low pensions (8%), corruption and bureaucracy (8%) among problems.
The VCIOM survey was conducted on September 24-25, 2016, in 130 settlements, 46 regions and 9 federal districts of Russia. Sample size was 1600 persons. The survey was conducted with multi-stage stratified sample based on general rule of walking and quotas at the final selection stage; the sample is representative of the Russian population aged 18 and over according to sex, age, education, type of settlement. The margin of error (taking into account the design effect) with 95% confidence interval does not exceed 3.5%. The survey method is community-based formalized face-to-face interviews. Apart from the margin of error, minor changes in question wording and different circumstances arising during the field work should be taken into account.
In your opinion, what problems are the most important in the country in general? (open-ended question, not more than five answers, answers given by at least 2% of respondents) | |||||||||||||
| IX.15 | X.15 | XI.15 | XII.15 | I.16 | II.16 | III.16 | IV.16 | V.16 | VI.16 | VII.16 | VIII.16 | IX.16 |
Low salaries, low living standards | 14 | 15 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 12 | 12 | 13 | 15 | 15 | 14 | 17 | 15 |
Economy | 15 | 17 | 21 | 20 | 23 | 20 | 22 | 19 | 17 | 18 | 17 | 14 | 14 |
Health services | 7 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 11 | 12 | 12 | 10 | 13 | 12 |
Unemployment | 9 | 9 | 7 | 11 | 12 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 11 | 11 | 12 | 12 |
High inflation rate, price increase | 15 | 15 | 14 | 12 | 20 | 12 | 5 | 11 | 11 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 |
Education –related problems | 7 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 11 | 10 |
Social policies | 7 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 9 | 10 | 8 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 9 | 10 | 9 |
Low pensions, pension reform | 4 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 8 |
Corruption and bureaucracy | 7 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 8 |
Foreign policy | 10 | 5 | 10 | 12 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 5 |
Roads | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 6 | 5 |
High rates for public utilities | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 5 | 5 |
Agricultural and industrial breakdown, dependence on natural resources | 6 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 4 |
Unaffordable housing | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
Threat to the world | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 |
Internal policy | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
Problems of maternity and childhood | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
Note: Using materials from the site www.wciom.ru or wciom.com, as well as distributed by VCIOM, the reference to the source (or hyperlink for the electronic media) is obligatory!