Economic Level and Individual Values

1.    Background

We have confirmed that there is a global trend that world citizens are inclined to expect more on governments. They prioritize disaster response than civil liberties, public health than economic recovery, and government decisions than citizens’ requests. Meanwhile, people hold that citizens’ cooperative participation is of significance under governments’ control since they emphasize more on rule of law than rule by order, cooperation-centered disinfection than leadership centered one, and citizens-centered quarantine than government-centered one. Although there is a trend regarding the government’s role amid COVID-19 in international society, the fact that no clear tendency concerning data privacy and data transparency illuminates that the privacy issues are a sensitive and controversial topic in the middle of a pandemic. In this section, we will divide global citizens into two groups according to their economic standard and see if the variable of the economic level has an influence on individuals’ values.

2.    Research Topic

Generally speaking, people with different economic strength have distinguished ideologies in political and economic issues. Therefore, we will reaffirm if this common sense is also applicable to our study. Moreover, if two groups of people vary in their individual values, we will observe how their values differ as to their economic level.

3.    Questionnaire Used

Survey Question V-15: “People sometimes describe themselves as belonging to the lower, middle, or upper class. Where would you identify yourself? 1. Upper 2. Upper middle 3. Middle 4. Low middle 5. Low.” We categorized upper, upper-middle, and middle classes as the upper-middle classes, and low middle, low classes as the lower class.

Other questions have already been quoted in previous sections.

4.    Major Outcomes

Table 1: The Number of Upper-middle Classes and the Lower Class of Global Citizens

 

The survey reports that there are 4,177(27.3%) citizens belong to the lower class, and 11,135(72.7%) people are an upper-middle classes level among 15,312 global citizens. In this section, we will see if there are consistent differences in individual values between the two groups.

Figure 1: Bar Graph of Individual Value Indexes of Global Citizens by Economic Levels

When it comes to the global trend of individual values, people are prone to value disaster weathering, social distancing, government decisions, along with rule of law, cooperation-centered disinfection, and citizens-centered quarantine. The results of the individual value indexes by different classes are of interest since the lower class’s individuals are more active in global trend values considering that their index scores are higher than that of upper-middle classes.

Below figures are bar graphs of each index of each city. The calculation method is that the score of upper-middle classes minus that of the lower class, and therefore, if the result value is negative, it means that the lower class people think more highly of the corresponding ideology than upper-middle class; whereas if the result values are positive, it signifies that upper-middle classes citizens are more emphasizing that thought than the lower class. Let’s see more detailed information below.

Figure 2: Bar Graph of Global Citizens’ Civil Liberties Priority Index (CLPI) by Economic Level

Figure 2 demonstrates that most upper-middle classes in the world gave higher scores on civil liberties than the lower class. Meanwhile, the lower class in Tokyo, Vienna, Moscow, Santiago, and New Delhi gave higher scores on this ideology than upper-middle class in these cities. To be specific, citizens of the lower class of Moscow gave 0.93 points higher than those of the upper-middle class on the issue of civil liberties.

Figure 3: Bar Graph of Global Citizens’ Economy Priority Index (EPI) by Economic Level

Figure 3 demonstrates that most upper-middle classes in the world gave higher scores on economic recovery than the lower class. Meanwhile, the lower class in Tokyo, Taipei, Singapore, Rome, Moscow, Santiago, and Mexico City gave higher scores on this ideology than upper-middle class in these cities. To be specific, citizens of the lower class of Moscow gave 0.68 points higher than those of the upper-middle class on the issue of economic recovery.

Figure 4: Bar Graph of Global Citizens’ Citizens Request Index (CRI) by Economic Level

Figure 4 demonstrates that most upper-middle classes in the world gave higher scores on citizens’ requests than the lower class. Meanwhile, the lower class in Tokyo, Osaka, Taipei, Hong Kong, Madrid, Rome, Moscow, Manila, Sao Paulo, and Santiago gave higher scores on this ideology than upper-middle class in these cities. To be specific, citizens of the lower class of Tokyo gave 0.73 points higher than those of the upper-middle class on the issue of citizens’ requests.

Figure 5: Bar Graph of Global Citizens’ Rule of Law Index (RLI) by Economic Level

Figure 5 demonstrates that most of the lower class in the world gave higher scores on rule of law than the upper-middle classes. Meanwhile, upper-middle classes in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Paris, Lisbon, Sydney, Wellington, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Mexico City, and Jakarta gave higher scores on this ideology than the lower class in these cities. To be specific, citizens of the lower class of Moscow gave 0.94 points higher than those of the upper-middle class on the issue of rule of law.

Figure 6: Bar Graph of Global Citizens’ Cooperation-centered Disinfection Index (CDI) by Economic Level

Figure 6 demonstrates that most of the lower class in the world gave higher scores on cooperation-centered disinfection than the upper-middle classes. So-called cooperation-centered disinfection lies in citizens’ active trust and cooperation in terms of recovering from the disaster. Meanwhile, upper-middle classes in Berlin, Paris, Lisbon, Stockholm, Sydney, Wellington, Manila, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires gave higher scores on this ideology than the lower class in these cities. To be specific, citizens of the lower class of Santiago gave 0.77 points higher than those of the upper-middle class on the issue of cooperative disinfection.

Figure 7: Bar Graph of Global Citizens’ Citizens-centered Quarantine Index (CQI) by Economic Level

Figure 7 demonstrates that there are no significant differences between the lower and the upper-middle classes in regard to citizens-centered quarantine. So-called citizens-centered quarantine means that the citizens are the main actors in the prevention of an epidemic. The result shows that the lower class of some cities gave higher scores on citizens-centered quarantine, while the upper-middle classes of some cities gave higher scores on citizens-centered quarantine. The difference is slight and trivial in this ideology. However, Moscow shows a huge gap between the two groups. To be specific, citizens of the lower class of Moscow gave 0.74 points higher than those of the upper-middle class on the issue of citizens-centered quarantine.

Figure 8: Bar Graph of Global Citizens’ Data Privacy Index (DPI) by Economic Level

Figure 8 demonstrates that there are no significant differences between the lower and the upper-middle classes in regard to data privacy. So-called data privacy is, in contrast to revealing the movement history of infected people in detail, protecting people’s personal information, and not to treat patients like enemies. The result shows that the lower class of some cities, such as Tokyo, Taipei, Toronto, London, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Cape Town, Stockholm, Oslo, Moscow, Manila, Mexico City, and Jakarta, gave higher scores on data privacy, while the upper-middle classes of some cities, like Osaka, Hong Kong, Singapore, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Rome, Lisbon, Sydney, Wellington, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Santiago, New Delhi, gave higher scores on data privacy. All in all, the difference between the two groups is slight and trivial in this ideology. However, Vienna shows a huge gap between the two groups among 28 global cities. To be specific, citizens of the lower class of Vienna gave 1.43 points higher than those of the upper-middle class on the issue of personal information.

5.    Summaries and Further Tasks

a.     Data analysis shows that the thoughts of the lower-class citizens are more aligned with the individual values of the global trend.

b.     The upper-middle class gave higher scores on civil liberties, citizens’ requests, and economic recovery than the lower class. While the lower class gave higher scores on rule of law, cooperation-centered disinfection.

c.     In the process of quarantine, the lower class and the upper-middle classes equally valued who plays the main role and whether privacy is important or not.

d.     The study is limited to descriptive research, and therefore, a more detailed explanative investigation is required to further understand the global citizens’ consciousness presented above. Moreover, the study also requires further quantitative analysis to assure the accuracy of the results.