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Compared to other parts of the Arab world, citizens in Qatar and the Gulf region are more content with their household income, the Arab Opinion Index revealed.
Around 49% of Gulf participants in the survey said their income covers their expenses and allows them to save, while 37% said their income covers household expenses but doesn’t allow them to save much. On the other hand, 7% said their income wasn't enough for household expenses and to save, while another 7% declined to answer.
The study, launched recently, discovered that only 25% of respondents from the Arab world, mainly from the Gulf region, reported that their household income was sufficient to make savings after covering their necessary expenditures.
The revelation, in the eighth edition of the AOI published by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies at the Doha Institute of Graduate Studies, shines a light on the resilience of Gulf economies.
For Qatar, 83% of the respondents said the economic situation in the country was very good, while 16% said it was good.
According to the AOI report, 42% of respondents from the entire survey reported that while their household incomes were sufficient to cover necessary subsistence expenditures, they could not save.
Meanwhile, 28% of respondents said they lived “in a state of need,” with household incomes not covering their necessary expenditures.
“As expected, the most affluent households were concentrated in the Gulf Region, while families in greatest need were concentrated in the Mashreq,” the report said.
The Index discovered that of the respondents whose households live “in need,” 33% resort to borrowing from various sources, including 16% from family and friends and 13% from banks and financial institutions to cover their essential expenditures.
On the other hand, 18% of needy families rely on institutional aid, whether from charitable, governmental, religious or civil associations, while 10% resort to selling their properties.
“This means that the frameworks of traditional social solidarity are still stronger than the framework of institutional aid.” The report stressed.
“We are grateful to which extent that the Arab people are welcoming the researchers to give their views on the questions that we ask,” Executive Director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and Coordinator of the Arab Opinion Index (AOI) Dr. Mohammad Al Masri, told The Peninsula.
“Maybe it reflects that the people also wanted their voices to be heard, which is very important. So, it’s a win-win situation. We interview them, and then we publish their views,” he added.
The 2022 Arab Opinion Index is based on face-to-face interviews with 33,300 individuals in 14 Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Mauritania. The Arab Opinion Index remains the most extensive public opinion survey in the Arab world.
Meanwhile, the economies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are projected to expand by 6.9 %in 2022 before moderating to 3.7% and 2.4% in 2023 and 2024, according to a World Bank Gulf Economic Update (GEU).
The World Bank update said the easing of pandemic restrictions and positive developments in the hydrocarbon market drove substantial recoveries in 2021 and 2022 across the GCC. Solid economic recovery and supply chain bottlenecks raised inflation in the GCC to an average rate of 2.1% in 2021 — up from 0.8% in 2020.
