Russian assessments of situation in the country and their personal lives have stabilized. Optimism about country’s future is strengthening.

MOSCOW, May 10, 2016.  Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VCIOM) presents the data of the survey devoted to the Russians’ assessments of the situation in the country and in their personal lives as well as what they expect in the future. 

Social mood index* reflecting how Russians currently assess their lives has been within the range of 69-71 p. (on a scale of -100 to 100) since February to April. At the same time, over the recent month there has been an increase in positive assessments (“good” and “perfect”) (from 22% to 28%). A year ago Russians assessed the situation better (76 p.), whereas during the same periods in 2010-2014, the index was lower than in April this year.

Social mood index describing the perception of the situation in the country*, surpassed its negative trend in March (increase from 44 to 51 p.) and has been positive in April (51 p.). It is lower than the April 2015 reading (64 p.) but higher that the readings of the previous years.  The number of positive assessments was 74% in April (“perfect”, “good”, “normal”); the number of the negative ones was 23% (“bad”, “awful”).

Optimism about country’s future has been increasing for the second consecutive month. Social expectation index** has gained 11 points from February to April and reached -53 p. (at a possible minimum of -100 and a maximum of 100 p.); of note is that this reading has never been positive over the entire measurement period. Simultaneously, during the previous years the Russian expectations for the future were more optimistic than today. Currently, 19% say that difficult times are over. Every fifth (21%) believes that we are experiencing difficult times now; and every second (51%) thinks that hardships are yet to come.

*Social mood indices show how Russians assess the situation in the country/personal lives. The indicators are based on the questions: “How would you assess the situation in the country/in your personal life?” The index is calculated as a difference between the answers “everything is normal”, “everything is perfect”, “everything is good”” and “everything is bad”, “everything is awful”. The index can vary between -100 and 100 points.  The higher the value of index is, the better Russians think the situation is in these spheres.

**Social expectation index shows how optimistic Russians are about the future. The index is calculated as a difference between the answer “the hard times are over” and the sum of answers “the hard times are now”, and “the hard times are yet to come”. The index can vary between -100 and 100 points.  The higher the value of index is, the more optimistic Russians are about country’ future. Zero reading shows the balance between optimistic and pessimistic expectations.

The VCIOM survey is conducted April 23-24, 2016, in 130 settlements, 46 regions and republics and 9 federal districts of Russia. The survey is based on community-based formalized face-to-face interviews and involves 1600 respondents, aged 18 and over. The margin of error (taking into account the design effect) is 3.5% at the 95% confidence level. The survey is conducted with multi-stage stratified sample based on general rule of walking and quotas at the final selection stage (representative Russian sample include sex, age, education and type of settlement). Apart from the margin of error, minor changes in question wording and different circumstances arising during the field work should be taken into account.

Note: Using materials from the websites 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.