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A higher proportion of Hungarians than the world average responded positively to questions about their attachment to their compatriots, their local community, and to all people in the world, reports Index.
The Pew Research Center’s latest survey explored the following questions: How close do people feel to others around the world? How much do they want their countries involved in international affairs? How do people’s experiences with travel and feelings of international connectedness relate to their views about the world?
The U.S. think tank conducted research in 24 countries. On average, 50% of respondents feel close to all people in the world, an average of 78% feel close to people in their local community, and 83% on average feel close to the people in their country.
Hungary has the highest proportion of respondents who consider people in their own country to be close to them (93%).
Hungarians also responded positively with regard to local communities (82%) and to people around the world (61%), above the international average.
Other countries with particularly high scores were the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, and Italy, with Poland also scoring highly in the first two aspects. By contrast, in France and Germany, the positive responses to all three questions were relatively low.
The survey also looked at travel habits, and unsurprisingly, among those who traveled a lot, there were also more people who felt close to all the people in the world. There is a big difference between Europe and the rest of the world when it comes to traveling abroad. On average, 79% of respondents have traveled to at least one other country, while in the EU at least two thirds of people have traveled abroad, compared to Indonesia, India, Latin America, and Africa.
Sweden and the Netherlands stand out in this respect, with 99% of respondents saying they had been to another country. In terms of the volume of trips, on average, 34% of respondents in the 24 countries have been to at least one country and up to four, 17% to between five and nine and 13% to more than ten.
Hungary has one of the lowest rates in Europe. In the country, 24% of respondents have visited at least five other countries.
Of the European countries surveyed, only Poland has a lower rate, with 13% of the population saying ‘yes.’
Not surprisingly, there is a strong correlation between financial situations and travel behavior, and the same can be said for educational level. What is more interesting, however, is that people living in metropolitan agglomerations travel more than those living in cities. The lowest proportion of those who travel abroad are rural residents.
The survey has also found that travel experience is related to the role that people want their country to play in world affairs.
People who have more international travel experience are more likely to see benefits to their own country’s active engagement with world affairs,”
according to the survey. Only 30% Hungarian respondents with low travel experience say that it is best for the future of the country to be active in world affairs, while 41% of people with high travel experience say the same.
However, in France, for instance, people with a lot of international travel experience are almost twice as likely (61%) as those with less experience (31%) to say that active involvement in world affairs is best for their country’s future.
Via Index, Pew Research Center; Featured image: Pixabay