Ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, we asked women around the world: has life gotten better for their generation compared to their parents? And do they think life will get better for the next generation?
In this article, we explore how responses compare across regions, and how women in various APAC markets think life has changed and will likely change for their or their peers’ children.
What do women in APAC think about how life has changed and will change in the future?
Latest data from YouGov Surveys show that almost three in five women in APAC (58%) say life has generally gotten better for people their age, compared to their parents’ experience. This is significantly higher than in EMEA (45%) and AMERS (40%), where less than half of women feel the same.
In comparison, only around half of women in APAC (49%) expect life to get better for the next generation. But this is significantly higher compared to other parts of the globe: only three in ten women in AMERS (29%) and a quarter of women in EMEA (24%) feel the same.
How do different generations of women differ in their views on how life has and will change?
Within APAC, women who are Baby Boomers are most likely to feel that life has gotten better for their generation when compared to their parents, with over three in five (62%) indicating so.
A sizeable 56-58% of Gen Z / Millennial / Gen X women also believe that they enjoy a generally better life than their parents have, all things considered.
When asked whether life for the next generation will be better than theirs, a relatively smaller proportion women across generations thought so. Half of women who are Millennials (50%) thought so, compared to 47-49% of women from other birth cohorts.
But an age-based pattern could be gleaned from the proportion of women who think life for the next generation will be worse than their own: while over a quarter of women who are Baby Boomers thought so (28%), that proportion was halved among Gen Z respondents (14%).
How do women in various APAC markets differ in their views on how life will change for the future generations?
Across APAC markets, women in China and India are most likely to expect life to get better for the next generation: almost two-thirds of women in China (65%) and three-fifths of women in India (59%) think so.
Meanwhile, just under half of women in Singapore (48%) agree, while over two in five of women in Indonesia (46%) and Hong Kong (44%) agree. Women in Australia are least likely to expect life to get better for the next generation: only a third (34%) think so.
While responses from men in most markets were comparable, women in China are significantly more optimistic than men about life getting better for the next generation (65% vs 60%).
Conversely, women in Australia are significantly more pessimistic than men about life getting better for the next generation (34% vs 40%).
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Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced provides quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 510 and 2,044 for each market. Surveys were conducted online between end 2020 to early 2023. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.
