Mongolia

Key findings in 2016

Percentage of respondents that agree or strongly agree with the following statements	Mongolia	Transition region average	Germany	Italy
Economic situation better than 4 years ago	13	24	33	7
Political situation better than 4 years ago	9	28	17	9
Household lives better than 4 years ago	38	29	28	10
There is less corruption than 4 years ago	17	23	16	10
Satisfied with personal financial situation	34	31	55	33

Satisfaction with the situation at the country level and with personal circumstances

Only 13 and 9 per cent of respondents, respectively, think that the economic and political situation in Mongolia was better in 2016 than four years prior to the survey, down from 42 and 29 per cent, respectively, in 2010. While these figures are substantially lower than the corresponding averages for Central Asia (71 and 72 per cent, respectively), they are also approximately equivalent to one-half and one-third of the averages for the transition region (24 and 28 per cent, respectively). Moreover, 17 per cent of Mongolians believe that there was less corruption in 2016 than four years before the survey.

38 per cent of respondents believe that their households lived better in 2016 than they did in the four years before the survey, a figure that increases to 43 per cent among respondents aged between 18 and 39 and to an impressive 70 per cent for the respondents in the upper income bracket. Approximately one in three Mongolians report that they are satisfied with their current personal financial situation, a value slightly above the transition region average of 31 per cent but significantly lower than the average for Central Asia (65 per cent).

Life satisfaction has improved overall by 1 percentage point since the last survey, from 54 per cent in 2010 to 55 per cent in 2016, and more so for respondents in the upper-income bracket.

Optimism about the future has declined by 6 percentage points compared to 2010. In 2016, 63 per cent of respondents believe that future generations will have a better life than the current generations, as opposed to about 50 per cent of the population in the transition region as a whole. Optimism is less pronounced among those in the upper-income group and for respondents aged 60 and over.

 

Attitudes towards democracy and the market economy

Among Mongolian respondents, 60 per cent support a market economy (the third highest figure in the transition region), while around one-third of those surveyed believe that a planned economy might be preferable over a market economy under some circumstances. While the majority of respondents (54 per cent) prefer democracy to any other form of government, about 29 per cent say they might prefer, under some circumstances, an authoritarian system.

When asked which democratic institutions exist in Mongolia, the majority of the population mentioned peace and stability and freedom of speech, at 64 and 53 per cent, respectively. The extent to which respondents agree that other basic democratic institutions exist in their country is rather low and below 50 per cent: for instance, only one in five Mongolians believe that free elections are conducted in the country, one of the lowest figures in the transition region.

 

Priorities for government spending

36 per cent of Mongolians believe that the public health system should be prioritised for additional government spending. Other funding priorities identified by the survey respondents are education (at 24 per cent) and helping the poor (17 per cent). Additional results show that around 69 and 65 per cent of those surveyed would be willing to pay more taxes to improve the quality of the public health system and public education, respectively.

 

Sources of information

The main daily sources of information for Mongolians are the television and the radio, used by 82 per cent of the respondents (the second highest figure in the transition region), and conversations with family, friends and colleagues, mentioned by 42 per cent of those surveyed. In addition, a quarter of respondents use the internet and social media on a daily basis.

 

Self-assessed health

53 per cent of Mongolians say they are in good health, a figure that is in line with the averages for the transition region and Italy (54 per cent in both cases) but lower than the corresponding figure for Germany (68 per cent). Data show that, relative to 2010, there has been a substantial increase in positive health assessments among the upper income group (44 percentage points) while the opposite holds for respondents aged 60 or over (a decrease by 21 percentage points).

 

Quality of public services

The majority of those surveyed report being satisfied with the quality of public services in their country, with the exception of local roads and postal services, which cause dissatisfaction to around 56 and 68 per cent of the population, respectively. The remaining figures range from a 70 per cent satisfaction rate for the provision of electricity to a satisfaction rate of 63 per cent for water services. Compared to the western European comparators, Mongolian respondents are less satisfied with the quality of the public services and utilities.

 

Social and economic mobility

When respondents were asked from a list of options what they thought were the most important factors for success in life in their country, 69 per cent of Mongolians chose “effort and hard work”, the second highest result in the transition region, and a 10 percentage points increase relative to 2010 levels. About 20 per cent of respondents opted for “intelligence and skills”, which is below the averages for both Germany and Italy.

 

Attitudes towards women

93 per cent of respondents believe it is important for their daughter to achieve a university education, while 95 per cent think that women are as competent as men as business executives, the highest figure in the transition region. Nevertheless, 70 per cent of female and male respondents believe that men are better political leaders than women. In addition, 45 per cent of the sample favours a traditional family arrangement where the man works and the woman takes care of the house and children, and 35 per cent of respondents of either gender think that a woman should do the household chores, even if her husband is not working.