Americans Motivated to Improve Their Financial Situations This Year

January 3, 2013

Ipsos-Americans-Wishes-for-2013-Jan2013Asked what they most want out of 2013, half of Americans surveyed by Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange (OTX) said they would like to improve their financial situation. That makes finances the dominant theme for the year, with relatively fewer hoping for improved health (21%), more time with friends and family (19%) and travel to other countries (6%). Still, Americans are slightly less likely to want to better their finances than the global average of 55% across 24 studied markets, and are instead more interested in improving their health and spending more time with family and friends.

Among the 24 markets, a high of 75% in Brazil want most to improve their finances, while those in Sweden seem quite content with their situations, with just 29% saying this is their top goal. In fact, in Sweden, respondents were almost as likely to want to improve their health (26%) as their finances (29%), while being 75% more likely than the global average to want to travel abroad (21% vs. 12%).

In the US, certain population segments are more likely to be financially motivated by others. Some of the more interesting results are listed below:

  • Men are 17.4% more likely than women to want to improve their financial situation (54% vs. 46%), while women are almost 50% more likely to want to spend more time with friends and family (22% vs. 15%).
  • 35-49-year-olds are 50% more likely than 50-64-year-olds to want to improve their financial situation (57% vs. 38%). Conversely, the older group is 79% more likely to want to spend more time with friends and family (25% vs. 14%).
  • Unsurprisingly, older respondents are more concerned with improving their health than younger respondents.
  • Non-married respondents are almost 25% more likely than married respondent to most want to better their finances (56% vs. 45%).
  • There is very little variation in financial motivations when sorting by education level.
  • Somewhat predictably, respondents from low-income households (57%) are more likely than those from medium- (53%) and high-income (47%) households to want to improve their financial situations.
  • The employed are more likely than the unemployed to want to better their finances (52% vs. 46%).
  • Americans are half as likely as the global average to say that traveling abroad is their top wish for this year (6% vs. 12%).

About the Data: The Ipsos data is based on a weighted sample size of 12,000, from an online survey conducted across 24 countries, with adults aged 18-64 in the US and Canada, and 16-64 in all other countries. The US data is based on a sample size of 500.

The countries reporting were: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the US.

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