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The continuing evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought global changes that are evident in every aspect of our personal and professional lives. Dynata’s earlier Global Consumer Trend reports – Understanding the Pandemic, The New Normal and The Reopening – first documented many of these changes, which have continued to evolve, reflecting how and where we work, shop, pay and spend our time as well as how businesses and industries have fared during this year of ambiguity. Yet even some of those aspects have stabilised, other parts of our daily lives remain dynamic, including where we live, our confidence in the economy, and even remote learning and job reskilling.
Closer to home, the Asia Pacific economy continues to grapple with both the Coronavirus pandemic and the impact of our political relations in-and-outside the region that impact on trades and people movement. Taken together, these challenges are amplifying economic uncertainty.
Here’s a closer look at some of the most compelling storylines emerging in the Global Consumer Trends: The Economy report:
With a large portion of the workforce working remotely during the pandemic, many of us continue to feel more productive, however work-life balance has experienced a decline since the start of 2020.
Seventy percent of people across the globe feel they are just as, if not more, productive working from home, an eight-point increase since Dynata last asked in April 2020. Yet, despite feeling productive, satisfaction with work-life balance has dropped 10 percentage points since January 2020. Here in APAC, the sentiment varies. 63% Indians followed by 45% Australians report their work life balance as “extremely good” or “very good” whilst only 28% Singaporeans and 20% Japanese say so, the global average is 41%.
Concern for household finances and national economies remain elevated, though have decreased since the beginning of the pandemic.
Over half of participants expressed concerned about their household’s financial situation, though this has dropped across most the countries surveyed since April 2020. Consumer anxiety for their national economy has also decreased since the earlier days of the pandemic, with Baby Boomers expressing the most concern and Gen Z the least.
The early stages of the pandemic were marked by increased vacancies in many cities; it appears, however, the flight from those cities may have been a temporary phenomenon.
During the pandemic, the percentage of people moving out of London, Paris, New York and Sydney and those that moved into the city is nearly equal – 62% leaving cities vs. 59% moving into cities. And, of those who moved since March, only 55% feel it is a permanent move. Notably, 73% of those who moved from an AU or US city centre relocated to another residence in the city centre; just 6% left the city for a town or rural location.
Awareness for the Gig Economy continues to grow, though less people report working in it. More people across all generations are aware of the Gig Economy, yet every generation reports fewer members working in it since January 2020, with Gen X experiencing the largest drop at 17 percentage points, followed by a 14-point decrease for Baby Boomers and Millennials, and 11 points with Gen Z.
In January 2020, Indians and Chinese were the most in favour of the Gig Economy – 42% and 38% respectively believing it is “good for the economy”, today that attitude dropped 6% and 7% respectively. On the other hand, Australians and New Zealanders were the least in favour of the Gig Economy – only 18% and 19% correspondingly share the same belief, and that attitude remains stable at 19% and 20% respectively, on par with the global average 22%.
As children have transitioned from classroom for remote learning, responsibility for overseeing that learning is not equally distributed between genders.
Seventy-six percent of women with children between 5-10 years old say they were responsible for their child’s remote learning, compared to 59% of men; this changes to 48% and 44%, respectively, for parents of 16-17-year olds.
As perhaps expected, more of us are shopping online for essential items during the pandemic (compared to prior offline levels), with the largest growth in the grocery, personal care products and household items sectors.
The grocery, personal care products and household items sectors are the highest growth categories in online shopping as compared to prior to the pandemic, a significant change from prior offline levels – each increasing seven percentage points in average since Spring 2020. In terms of the highest online share of expenditure, clothing, footwear and home electronics are the categories amongst the top.
While there are vast differences at the country level in online versus offline spending, little variance exists across genders and generations.
The Dynata Global Consumer Trends report series connects consumer trends with the societal, economical and psychological dynamics that drive them, delivering a unique level of depth and breadth on some of the most important topics in our world today. To stay up to date with the latest consumer trends, visit www.dynata.com.
