By Kayhan Life Staff
Public pessimism is on the rise among Iranians, with nearly two-thirds of survey respondents showing no hope that their circumstances will improve in the future, a senior official has said.
Mohammad Bathaei, Deputy Interior Minister and Head of the Social Affairs Organization (SAO), said in a June 16 interview with the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) that surveys (conducted by the Interior Ministry and academic institutions) showed around 60 percent of those polled had negative expectations of their future prospects. This was, he said, a “serious warning signal.”
While the country’s problems are serious, Bathaei said, rebuilding public trust and strengthening the relationship between citizens and governing institutions is just as critical as addressing economic challenges, and must therefore be pursued with equal seriousness.
Bathaei said Iran’s Social Capital Index — the interconnected network of relationships, trust, shared values, and social norms that enables individuals and groups to cooperate effectively and function cohesively — was on a downward trajectory, dropping from 43.5 percent in 2015 to around 36.6 percent in 2025.
He said only about 25 percent of people currently believed there was justice and equality in society. By contrast, nearly 75 percent of respondents felt that discrimination and inequality significantly affected their daily lives.
According to surveys, overall social satisfaction in Iran is around 38 percent, while 62 percent of people report dissatisfaction with the current situation.
Bathaei said policymakers should take these perceptions seriously.
Turning to what he he referred to as society’s economic tolerance threshold, he said surveys showed 60 percent of respondents felt that livelihood struggles had depleted their resilience and that they could not handle more economic strain.
He said 70 percent of respondents indicated that the solution to current crises did not lie in promises, but in structural and fundamental changes at the macro policy level.
More than half of respondents called for new leadership to bring about these essential transformations. These findings indicated a deep and widening gap between the government and the public, he noted.
