Life and living: assessing people's perceptions

Opinion polls and market surveys are quite dated tools that are still in use for assessment of real life situations of the present and the near future. Their reliability varies on the issues or subjects for which opinions are garnered and collated within a timeframe. For instance, exit polls taken after an election reflects the decisions already made and expressed by a voter who has just cast his or her vote in an election. Here the conclusion about the outcome of the verdict given by an electorate is based on fact. But it does not represent hundred per cent of the fact as the exit poll only represents the decision of a certain percentage of the electorate taken at random. Opinion polls on current social and political issues, on the other hand, belong to a different kettle of fish. The reliability of their findings depends both on the size of respondents (persons interviewed) and their socio- economic backgrounds. However much broad these two desiderata are made to be, the subjectivity involved in the opinions expressed almost always makes the conclusion tentative, requiring the result to be taken with a grain of salt.
The above proviso need to be taken in to mind while considering the results of a few survey results (opinion polls) that have been made public recently. The first is about people's perception on politics, economic management and cost of living in Bangladesh based on an opinion poll conducted by the Asia Foundation and BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD). The Asia Foundation published the results of the survey in their website recently and the summary of the report has been published in some daily papers. The name given to the survey is pretty long and speaks of the broad scope of the goal of the survey: 'The state of Bangladesh's politics, governance, development and society according to citizens'. Though apparently disparate and diverse, there is a common refrain going through the constituent parts of the caption, which is economic governance and political democracy. According to news published, some 10,240 respondents in 64 districts were interviewed to elicit their views on the issues surveyed. Gender balance was maintained and equal number of respondents was selected from either sex. Weightage was given to rural areas as a result of which 64 per cent of respondents were from villages. Their educational and economic backgrounds, however, have not been provided. The period covered by the survey is from November 2022 to January 2023 and the demographic basis was the census of 2011.
Persons interviewed were asked to give their opinion on: (a) politics and people's representatives; (b) social mobility and economic development; (c) democracy and election; (d) citizenship; (e) empowerment of women; (f) digital Bangladesh; (g) social media and influence of policies; and (h) other current issues. Perhaps this is the first time that a public opinion poll on such wide ranging issues has been undertaken. Giving weightage to rural population is also new and for the first time. Needless to say, the goal set for the survey is ambitious and its handling of answers complicated by degrees of subjectivity. In fact, the entire survey, based on perceptions of the respondents and not on objective evidence, is highly speculative. It has not been indicated in the news about the survey whether the educational and professional backgrounds of the respondents were taken into account in the process of selection. Nor has it been explained as to why majority of the respondents were selected from the rural areas. Given the nature of the issues on which opinions have been elicited, it would have made greater sense if the weightage was the reverse. For instance, answer on the issue of economic management requires educational background and sophisticated expertise that can be found generally more in urban areas than in rural ones. Similar is the case with Digital Bangladesh. The fact of the matter is, as of now the urban and rural areas are two different worlds in some important respects and they can be lumped together only at the risk of oversimplification.
From the news published, it is learnt that similar survey and research were conducted in 2017 and 2019. The findings on the earlier surveys have been compared with the current one. It is not clear whether the respondents were the same during these different survey periods. If the idea is to conduct a longitudinal time series survey, then the respondents and locale have to be the same.
Regarding the present survey, it has been reported that 69.7 per cent of respondents were of the opinion that the country is in the wrong track on the issue of proper economic policies. The reasons behind this view have not been elaborated. Perhaps the questionnaire did not have any scope for this, allowing only yes/ no type answer. To be able to comment on this complex issue would require a given level of education and professional experience. It is not known if the respondents fulfilled that condition. The only clue to this revealed in the survey is that that majority of the respondents who felt the country's economic management left much to be desired are from the small income group. Based on comparison with past two surveys, the present one finds that the response this year on the issue of economic policy and management shows a slight improvement of 1 (one) per cent of the respondents. This finding flies in the face of facts because the previous two surveys were before the pandemic when economic condition for the small income group was much better than after the pandemic which is the period covered by the latest survey(2022-23). Either the selection of respondents has been wrong or the question asked was not clear to them. Be that as it may, the bulk of opinion expressed on this being unrealistic does not provide any basis for changes in policy making.
The comparison of the present survey with the past two shows the biggest differences on the issue of politics and democracy. Whereas 63.6 per cent of the respondents in 2019 thought that politically Bangladesh was doing the right thing, the percentage in 2022 came down to 39.1 per cent. This is a big drop, but the political condition between 2019 and 2022 did not show any sharp deterioration to warrant this sea change in public opinion. No explanation has been given by the sponsors of the survey on this and as such the finding is either motivated or an infantile mental exercise.
Similar drop in public perception between 2019 and 2022 is seen with regard to social development, 77 per cent vs 57.5 per cent. Apart from the confusion arising out of what is included under ' social', the more relevant is the question regarding what went wrong 'socially' between these two periods to justify the conclusion. Simply quoting the percentage of respondents in favour of a reply without corresponding explanation is not only amateurish but also highly irresponsible.
Where the present survey hits the bull's eye is in respect of the rising cost of living. About 44 per cent of the respondents in 2022 considered the rise in the prices of essential items as the biggest economic problem, whereas in 2019 the figure was 33 per cent. What is surprising is the small increase in the number of people who felt the pressure of rising cost of living. Since cost of living affects different income groups in different ways, the survey should have collected the opinion on the basis of income groups, administering the questionnaire accordingly. The conclusion of the survey for 2022-23 about 84 per cent of population affected by rising cost of living is not matched by the figure of 44 per cent respondents answering positively to this.
Only 10 per cent of the respondents in the 2022-23 survey identified unemployment as a major economic problem. It is almost certain that if the respondents were selected according to income groups, the percentage would have been higher. The emergence of Gig economy during and after the pandemic, with part time employment of nominal wages, hides unemployment among the educated young group. Any survey on unemployment has to take this fact into account to be realistic.
Among other issues on which the respondents' views have been elicited, Rohingya problem is one. It is seen that the percentage of respondents sympathetic to their taking shelter in Bangladesh has slid down over years, from 39 per cent in 2018 to 13 per cent in 2022. This appears to be realistic.
Regarding Padma bridge, 72 per cent of the respondents in 2022-23 consider it to be very important while 4 per cent have questioned the cost and time overruns in the implementation.
Among other recent surveys, the one on the impact of pandemic on children's education by BBC deserves mention. Starting with the case study on the children in war-affected Syria, the TV channel has conducted the survey in a number of countries whose results would be aired one by one. Regarding Syria, the survey has found that 40 per cent of boys and girls of school going age have dropped out of school as a result of the civil war and pandemic. This percentage in other developing countries affected only by pandemic may not be as high as in Syria but are significant enough to call the attention of national governments and international aid agencies to take up programmes for their re-enrollment in educational institutions. Of late, particularly after the Ukraine war, BBC has lost some of its hallowed neutrality. But on the issue of children's education affected by the pandemic and other causes it can be expected to be objective and non- political.
The last of the recent survey to be mentioned here is the opinion poll revealed by CNN a few days back on the electoral prospects of President Biden and other Presidential hopefuls in the next election. The poll shows that 68 per cent of respondents consider Biden too old to be the next President. What is more damaging for President Biden is the percentage of respondents (58) who think his handling of economy has been less than satisfactory. The opinion poll on his age and health is understandable but the verdict on his economic management appears as unfair. Under his watch, inflation in America has come down from 10 per cent a year ago to 5 per cent, faster than in Europe. His trillion dollar infrastructure programme will create millions of jobs and mend the creaky infrastructures in the country. In view of this, it has to be said that opinion poll in America, where it originated, does not always act as the weather vane or the blind scale of justice.
To conclude, opinion polls in Bangladesh or elsewhere are not infallible, suffering from structural defects or bias, and it makes sense to take them with a grain of salt.

[email protected]