Where Hope Thrives: Demographic Variation in Hope across 22 Countries
Across 22 countries, self-rated hope varied substantially, with people in Indonesia, Mexico, and Argentina reporting the highest levels and people in Japan reporting the lowest.
Of all demographic factors examined, religious service attendance showed the largest difference in hope, with those attending services more than once a week reporting considerably higher hope than those who never attended.
While being married, employed, or more educated was associated with slightly higher hope in pooled analyses, the nature and strength of these demographic differences varied notably across countries.
This research matters because hope is more than a warm feeling — it is tied to how people face challenges, pursue goals, and find meaning in difficult times. By mapping hope across 22 countries and many demographic groups, this study gives us a baseline for understanding who is hopeful and who might be struggling.
For public health and policy, the findings point to specific groups that may benefit from targeted support — particularly younger adults, unemployed individuals, and those with less social connection. The higher hope levels among frequent religious service attenders point to community and shared meaning as potentially important factors in people's outlook on the future.
For researchers, this study highlights that hope cannot be understood through a single cultural lens. What hope looks like, and what goes along with it, varies from place to place. Future studies tracking hope over time will help us understand whether these patterns hold, shift, or respond to changes in people's lives and circumstances.
The study asked over 200,000 people in 22 countries a simple question: "Despite challenges, I always remain hopeful about the future." They rated their agreement from 0 to 10. The researchers wanted to know how hope differs across countries and across different groups of people — by age, gender, marriage, work, education, religious attendance, and whether someone was born in their country or moved there.
What they found was striking. Hope is not the same everywhere. People in Indonesia reported the highest hope levels (9. 17 out of 10), followed by Mexico and Argentina.
Japan reported the lowest (5. 95), with Sweden and Hong Kong also near the bottom. That is more than a 3-point gap on a 10-point scale between the most and least hopeful countries. When looking at different groups within countries, some patterns emerged. Older people tended to report slightly higher hope than younger people.
Married people reported higher hope than those who were single. People who were self-employed or working tended to report more hope than those looking for work. And people with more education reported slightly higher hope. But the biggest difference across all the demographic factors was religious service attendance. People who attended religious services more than once a week reported the highest hope levels (8. 68 on average), while those who never attended reported the lowest (7. 82). This pattern appeared in most countries, even in places like Japan and Sweden where overall hope levels were lower. Importantly, these patterns were not the same everywhere. In some countries, younger people were more hopeful. In Nigeria, widowed people reported higher hope than married people. In Poland, students reported more hope than employed people. And in Mexico, people with less education reported slightly higher hope than those with more. The study's findings point to hope as something found within relationships — with family, community, faith, and place — rather than just an individual feeling. This was a snapshot in time, not a study of cause and effect. But it gives us a first look at how hope is distributed across the globe and which groups might need more support.
On the 0–10 hope scale, Indonesia reported the highest mean hope at 9.17, while Japan reported the lowest at 5.95.
On the 0–10 hope scale, those attending religious services more than once a week scored 8.68, versus 7.82 for those who never attended.
Japan's hope inequality Gini coefficient was 0.21, three times higher than Indonesia's coefficient of 0.07.
On the 0–10 hope scale, unemployed individuals reported a mean hope of 7.68, about 1.3 points below self-employed individuals at 8.27.
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