69% Indians believe life today is better than 50 years ago: Pew Research

Sixty-Nine per cent Indians believe that life today is better than it was some 50 years ago, the Pew Research Center, a US think tank, said on Wednesday.

Same is the case with several other countries which have seen dramatic economic transformations since the late 1960s, it said.

However, Americans are split on the issue with 41 per cent saying life is worse while 37 per cent say it is better, the research said.

The result is based on a recent survey of 38 countries and interviews with more than 40,000 people.

In Vietnam, 88 per cent while in South Korea, 68 per cent people believe that life today is better than it was some 50 years ago, it said.

A majority of people in Turkey (65 per cent better) also share a sense of progress over the past five decades.

In some of the more developed countries, people report that life is better today, including 65 per cent in Japan and Germany, and 64 per cent in the Netherlands and Sweden.

Half or more in countries ranging from Italy (50 per cent) and Greece (53 per cent) to Nigeria (54 per cent) and Kenya (53 per cent) say life is worse today, the report said.

According to the report, in Europe, populists tend to be more enamoured of the past than people who disapprove of some of the continent's right-wing parties.

For example, Germans who support the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) are 28 percentage points more likely to say that life is worse for people like them than those who have an unfavourable view of the anti-immigrant party, it added.