Are We Heading in the Right Direction? What Sweden and Australia Reveal About the Optimism Gap. So Too Singapore, India and France
A commentary by Victor Perton
On Thursday night I returned home to Australia after a wonderful holiday through the Baltic and Scandinavia. I had thoroughly enjoyed Stockholm, its beautiful archipelago and the extraordinary Swedish island of Gotland. Back home, still thinking about Sweden, I cooked a Gotland-style lamb meal for my family.
During my time in Sweden, people often quickly recognised that I was Australian or asked where I was from. Again and again, people responded warmly. Some had visited Australia. Others had children or friends who had lived, worked or travelled here. They spoke of Australia with affection.
Australians, too, tend to admire Sweden. We see a prosperous, peaceful and well-governed country with beautiful cities, strong public services, innovative businesses and an enviable quality of life. The conversations left me with the impression that Australians and Swedes see much to admire in one another’s countries.
That is why the latest Ipsos findings surprised me.
Ipsos asks people a simple national question:
“Generally speaking, would you say things in this country are heading in the right direction, or are they off on the wrong track?”
The results for Australia and Sweden were almost identical. In Australia, 41 per cent said the country was heading in the right direction, compared with 37 per cent in Sweden. In Australia, 59 per cent said the country was on the wrong track. In Sweden, the figure was 63 per cent.
Australia ranked equal 12th among the 30 countries surveyed. Sweden ranked 16th. They recorded more national confidence than many Western countries, while clear majorities still believed our countries were moving in the wrong direction.
The Ipsos question measures something different from personal optimism.
Personal optimism asks whether people believe good things will happen in their own lives. Ipsos asks whether they believe their country is moving towards a better future.
Ipsos calls this measure “Direction of Travel”. It is best understood as national-direction sentiment: not a direct psychological measure of optimism, yet a useful indicator of optimism about a country’s future.
The distinction lies in the sense of movement. Satisfaction asks, “How are things now?” Direction asks, “Where are things going?”
A person who says the country is heading in the right direction is expressing the belief that national conditions are improving or that leaders, institutions, and citizens are moving the country towards a better future. A person who says the country is on the wrong track is expressing concern that current choices and conditions are leading to something worse.
The answer will be influenced by politics, economic conditions, government performance, safety, public services, social cohesion and recent events. It should not be treated as a pure measure of optimism. Yet it captures something central to national optimism: whether people believe their country is moving towards improvement.
This distinction becomes clearer when we compare the national-direction findings with Ipsos’ more direct personal-optimism questions.
In a separate survey, 68 per cent of Swedes agreed with the statement:
“I am optimistic that 2026 will be a better year for me than it was in 2025.”
The Australian result was almost the same, at 66 per cent.
Ipsos also asked whether people in their country would begin to feel more optimistic about the country’s long-term future during 2026. Sweden and Australia produced exactly the same result: 49 per cent agreed and 51 per cent disagreed.
These surveys were conducted at different times and should not be combined into a formal index. The pattern is nevertheless revealing.
Around two-thirds of Australians and Swedes remained optimistic about their own next year. Fewer than half expected greater optimism about their country’s long-term future. Only 41 per cent of Australians and 37 per cent of Swedes believed their countries were currently heading in the right direction.
People are often more optimistic about the parts of life where they believe their choices, relationships, effort and competence can make a difference. Psychologists describe a related idea as locus of control: whether people believe they can influence what happens or whether outcomes are largely determined by forces beyond them.
As the question moves further from personal control and closer to national politics, institutions and large systems, optimism may weaken.
This helps explain the optimism gap. People can enjoy good lives, love their families, take pride in their work, trust their neighbours and remain hopeful about their own futures while believing their country is moving in the wrong direction.
Ipsos asks: “Generally speaking, would you say things in this country are heading in the right direction, or are they off on the wrong track?”
The answer has remained remarkably consistent. Across four Ipsos surveys between January 2025 and June 2026, more than half of Australians and Swedes said their country was heading in the wrong direction, while fewer than half ever said it was heading in the right direction. Australia’s right-direction result ranged from 41 to 48 per cent. Sweden’s ranged from 27 to 37 per cent.
By June 2026, 41 per cent of Australians and 37 per cent of Swedes said their country was heading in the right direction, while 59 per cent and 63 per cent respectively said it was on the wrong track. The precise figures moved, yet the central finding remained: majorities in both countries consistently doubt their national direction.
Other Australian surveys reinforce the finding.
SEC Newgate’s Mood of the Nation survey, conducted in February 2025, found that only 38 per cent of Australians believed the country was heading in the right direction. By November, 61 per cent believed it was heading the wrong way. In February 2026, about two-thirds said Australia was heading in the wrong direction, which SEC Newgate described as a record high.
The surveys use different samples and methods, so their figures should not be combined into one continuous statistical series. Their broad agreement matters. Australia has been experiencing a sustained national confidence problem rather than one disappointing month of polling.
The Scanlon Foundation Research Institute adds an important qualification by asking a broader and more direct question: “In general, are you optimistic or pessimistic about Australia’s future?”
In 2025, 59 per cent of Australians said they were optimistic about the country’s future. That is considerably more positive than the Ipsos finding that 41 per cent believed Australia was heading in the right direction, and SEC Newgate’s finding that about two-thirds believed it was heading in the wrong direction.
The questions and survey methods differ, so the figures should not be compared too precisely. The contrast is nevertheless revealing. Scanlon asks about Australia’s future in broad terms. Ipsos and SEC Newgate ask people to judge the country’s present direction.
Australians appear to retain more confidence in the nation’s long-term future than in its current course.
Even that broader optimism has weakened. Between 2021 and 2025, optimism about Australia’s future fell by 12 percentage points. Belief that people’s own lives would improve also declined, together with measures of belonging, life satisfaction and confidence in Australia as a land of opportunity.
Australians can therefore believe in the country’s underlying strengths while doubting its current trajectory.
The Scanlon findings also help explain that doubt. Financial difficulty rose from 31 per cent in 2021 to 40 per cent in 2025, and financial stress was the strongest socioeconomic predictor of negative future expectations. In the June Ipsos survey, inflation was the leading Australian concern, selected by 46 per cent.
Australians may see the country’s strengths while wondering whether housing and essential services remain affordable, whether productivity growth can be restored, and whether the next generation will enjoy the opportunities available to earlier generations.
Australia is a good country, yet a majority of Australians have lost confidence in its national direction.
Sweden’s national unease may have different causes, although its national pessimism has also been developing for many years.
In January 2025, Ipsos reported that crime and violence had been Sweden’s leading public concern for 101 consecutive months, nearly eight and a half years. At that time, 65 per cent of Swedes selected it as one of the country’s major worries.
In June 2026, 55 per cent nominated crime and violence. Twenty per cent selected immigration control and 13 per cent selected the rise of extremism.
These findings point to persistent anxiety about safety, integration, trust and social cohesion. They do not justify reducing Sweden’s national mood to immigration alone. Crime and violence remained the much stronger concern.
The larger Swedish question appears to be whether the country can preserve safety, fairness, trust and belonging while adapting to changed social conditions.
There is an important counter-signal in both countries.
In Ipsos’ 2025 study of nine Western countries, Sweden was the only country where a majority, 65 per cent, said they were satisfied with how democracy was working. Only 41 per cent were worried about the state of Swedish democracy over the following five years.
Australia was not included in that Ipsos study. However, an Australian National University survey asking a similar question found that 67 per cent of Australians were satisfied with the way democracy worked before the 2025 federal election, rising to 73 per cent immediately afterwards.
The surveys were conducted at different times and used different methods, so their figures should not be compared too precisely. Together, however, they reveal a similar pattern.
Australians and Swedes can retain confidence in democracy and important institutions while doubting their country’s present direction. Their national pessimism does not mean that they have rejected their countries or abandoned democracy. It suggests that many people believe highly capable countries are responding too slowly or ineffectively to the problems they see.
Australia and Sweden are good countries with similar optimism gaps. The evidence appears across different questions, survey organisations and time periods.
Australians worry especially about whether life remains affordable and opportunity remains reachable. Swedes worry especially about whether safety and social cohesion can be secured.
Sweden remains one of the world’s most prosperous, innovative, democratic and highly functioning countries. The gap is between Sweden’s formidable capabilities and people’s confidence that the country is using those capabilities to secure safety, belonging and progress.
In both countries, personal confidence remains stronger than confidence in the shared national story.
In both, the picture people carry is formed partly by lived experience and partly by the stories they hear and repeat.
As I arrived home, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Melbourne for the Australia–India Annual Leaders’ Summit.
India recorded a very different Ipsos result.
Sixty-nine per cent of urban Indians surveyed said their country was heading in the right direction, placing India third among the 30 countries. Singapore ranked first at 79 per cent.
India also recorded strong economic confidence, with 75 per cent of urban respondents describing the economy positively. At the same time, Indians continued to identify unemployment, corruption, inequality, crime and inflation as serious concerns.
Confidence and concern can exist together.
The Indian result requires an important qualification. The Ipsos sample reflects a large part of India’s urban population rather than the full national population. The Singapore sample is also more urban, educated or affluent than the population as a whole. The Australian, Swedish and French samples are considered broadly representative of their general adult populations under 75.
The contrast nevertheless raises an important question.
Why do people in some countries believe their society is moving forward, even while facing serious problems, while people in prosperous and capable countries struggle to believe in their national direction?
Part of the answer may lie in whether people can see national momentum: visible economic, physical and institutional progress connected to a believable story about where the country is going.
India’s national story includes economic growth, new infrastructure, digital capability, enterprise and rising international influence. Singapore’s national story emphasises competence, planning, security and continuing development.
Both countries face real problems. Many people nevertheless appear to see their country moving forward and believe that further progress is possible.
If India and Singapore show the power of a visible story of movement, France shows what happens when people no longer see a convincing national direction.
Only 10 per cent of French respondents said their country was heading in the right direction. Ninety per cent said it was on the wrong track.
This was not a reaction to one difficult month. France recorded 12 per cent right direction in January 2025, 9 per cent in June 2025 and 10 per cent in December 2025.
The result remained extraordinarily low across changing events and political circumstances.
France’s pessimism appears too persistent and too deep to be explained by the latest political controversy or news cycle alone. It may reflect the accumulated effect of political choices, institutional disappointment and ideological conflict, together with the long decline from empire and relative global pre-eminence, a diminished sense of diplomatic leadership and uncertainty about France’s national purpose.
France presents a more deeply entrenched pessimism than Australia or Sweden. Its 10 per cent right-direction result was the lowest among the 30 countries surveyed. Personal optimism was also markedly weaker: only 41 per cent expected 2026 to be a better year for them personally.
Personal optimism remains stronger than confidence in the shared national project, yet both are unusually weak.
France retains extraordinary strengths in culture, science, infrastructure, education, industry, public administration and local government. Yet many French people do not see those strengths combining into a believable direction of national renewal.
A capable country still needs a shared belief that people can move forward together.
These comparisons leave a further question.
Why do people in prosperous, democratic and highly capable countries so often carry a darker picture of their national future than the evidence alone might justify?
Two of the conversations I had in Sweden turned to the late Swedish physician, academic and statistician Hans Rosling and his book Factfulness.
Rosling, together with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund, challenged the widespread belief that almost everything in the world is getting worse.
Their work showed how easily people can develop an overly dramatic picture of the world when bad news arrives without historical context, proportion or an understanding of long-term progress.
Rosling encouraged people to maintain a fact-based worldview and recognise the common ways in which information can be misinterpreted. One of the great misconceptions he sought to correct was the belief that everything is getting worse.
His insight helps us think about these contrasting national results.
Most of us are not statisticians. We do not form our judgement by examining long-term statistical series on health, education, safety, income, innovation, employment, infrastructure and institutional performance.
We form an impression from what we experience personally, what we see and hear in the news, and what family, friends and colleagues tell us.
The news performs an essential public function by exposing failure, danger, conflict and injustice. Those stories matter. Yet editors, chiefs of staff and journalists are often more alert to breakdown than progress.
Bad news fits established ideas of what is urgent, serious and newsworthy. Positive developments are less likely to be pursued, commissioned or given prominence, even when they are significant. As a result, people repeatedly see what is failing while much of what is improving remains outside the frame.
A violent crime is news. Thousands of peaceful neighbourhood encounters are not.
A failure in a hospital is news. Millions of successful treatments rarely are.
A political scandal is news. The daily work of capable public servants, teachers, nurses, engineers and community leaders receives less attention.
A business closure is visible and immediate. The creation of new businesses, technologies, skills and opportunities can be harder to see.
This does not mean public concern is imagined. Australians are living with real pressure around housing, prices and household finances. Swedes have serious concerns about crime, safety, integration and social cohesion.
The task is to hold those realities together with the fuller picture.
Rosling’s lesson was to resist the false choice between complacency and catastrophe. Things can be bad and better. A country can have serious problems and formidable strengths. Progress can be real while further progress remains urgent.
There is also a conversational effect.
What we read and watch becomes what we discuss. Repeated stories of failure, decline and danger move from the news into conversations with family, friends and colleagues. Those conversations can then reinforce the impression that deterioration is everywhere.
The surveys cannot prove that news coverage or everyday conversation causes national pessimism. Rosling nevertheless offers a plausible explanation for how a partial picture becomes the picture people carry in their heads.
This explanation may be especially useful for understanding short-term movements in national mood. Where pessimism persists for years, deeper causes must also be considered: accumulated political choices, institutional disappointment, ideological conflict, the long-term loss of empire and relative global influence, a diminished sense of diplomatic leadership, and a weakened sense of national purpose.
People can spread national pessimism through the stories they repeat. People can spread optimism too.
This is why leaders, journalists, researchers and citizens should report failure honestly and make progress visible. People need to know what is improving, why it is improving, what remains difficult and what they can do next.
A fact-based national story should show both the problems people must confront and the progress upon which they can build.
Rosling helps explain how a partial and overly dramatic picture of national life can take hold.
President Tharman helps explain why the loss of collective optimism matters, and what societies need if people are to regain confidence in their shared future.
Singapore’s President Tharman Shanmugaratnam has described a long drift towards pessimism in many advanced societies.
He distinguishes personal optimism from collective optimism: the belief that people can progress, overcome challenges, find solutions and move forward together.
He warns that when societies lose this shared belief, differences harden and politics increasingly divides people into “us” and “them”.
President Tharman argues that people need institutions and a social culture that strengthen connectedness, respect every person’s effort and contribution, and give people reasons for collective pride.
His analysis helps explain why national optimism matters.
People need more than confidence in their ability to manage their own lives. They need some belief that their country can solve problems, renew institutions, widen opportunity and create a future worth sharing.
Singapore’s high right-direction result should not be treated as proof that every Singaporean policy is right or that every feature of its political system can be transferred elsewhere.
It does suggest that many Singaporeans see a connection between national capability, long-term planning and practical progress.
Australia and Sweden possess remarkable capability too.
The challenge is to connect that capability with what people experience in daily life and with the national story they hear.
I began this essay with my personal experience of Sweden and the warm conversations I had there.
What can we do as individuals?
It is difficult for any one person to reverse national pessimism that has become well entrenched and appears to be worsening across much of the developed world. Yet the leader looks like the person in your mirror. Each of us can influence the mood of the families, workplaces and communities around us.
We can ask better questions.
What was the best thing that happened in your day?
What makes you optimistic?
What gives you confidence about the future?
What would national progress look like to you?
What is already improving, and what should we build upon?
We can listen seriously to people’s concerns and also share our own visions of national growth, renewal and possibility. We can draw attention to the people solving problems, the institutions that are working, the communities becoming stronger and the progress that deserves to be better known.
We can face what is difficult while helping one another hold the fuller picture: what is improving, what is possible and what we can do next.
People build national confidence through millions of daily conversations and actions.
Each of us can bring realistic and infectious optimism to our own world.
The next wise step may be as simple as asking someone today:
“What makes you optimistic about the future of our country?”