New Delhi: Which country judges its own people the harshest? A new Pew Research Center survey points to the United States, while India features near the other end of the spectrum. Fifty-three per cent of US adults said Americans have bad morals and ethics, while only 9 per cent of Indians said the same about their compatriots.
The finding comes from Pew’s Spring 2025 Global Attitudes Survey of more than 30,000 people in 25 countries. Respondents were asked to rate the morality and ethics of people in their own country. In every nation, barring the US, the majority described their fellow citizens as having “somewhat” or “very” good morals. Indian respondents said 88 per cent fit this description, with only Indonesia and Canada being more magnanimous on this front, at 92 per cent each.
Partisan politics appear to play a role in the American result, according to the report.
“Democrats and independents who lean toward the Democratic Party are much more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to rate fellow Americans as morally and ethically bad (60% vs. 46%). And previous research has shown that rising numbers of both Republicans and Democrats say people in the other party are immoral,” it read, referring to a 2022 survey on the subject.
Nevertheless, the US doesn’t have a monopoly on the political side-eye. Although the report did not give specific details, it said that in more than half the countries surveyed, people who do not support the governing party were “particularly likely to view their fellow citizens as immoral”.
Pew also tested another possibility: that Americans may simply be more moralistic than others. But on issues such as divorce, alcohol, or gambling, US respondents were largely in the middle of the global pack. Indians, in contrast, were a lot more disapproving.
Also read: Are Indians proud of their country? The latest Pew survey suggests not
Indians strict on divorce, less so on extramarital affairs
On nearly every behaviour Pew asked about, Indians stood out as among the most morally conservative. But the data reveals a curious paradox: Indians are stricter about divorce than they are about affairs.
Divorce, in particular, has become more contentious in India over the past decade. While attitudes have softened in most other countries, it’s the opposite in India, especially among women.
“The share of Indian adults who say divorce is morally wrong increased from 53% a decade ago to 65% in 2025 – largely driven by an increase among Indian women,” said the report.
In the other direction, Kenya had the biggest change of heart, with moral opposition to divorce tumbling from 59 per cent in 2013 to 30 per cent in 2025. Indonesia and Mexico also recorded a 10-point drop on this parameter.
India consistently clusters with Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey at the most conservative end of nearly every measure.
On abortion, 67 per cent of Indians say it’s morally wrong—nearly the same as Kenya (81 per cent) and Brazil (73 per cent), but a world away from Sweden, where just 5 per cent disapprove. Even in the US, where abortion is banned in several states, just 47 per cent call it morally wrong.
Eighty-one per cent of Indians condemn marijuana use, close to Indonesia (91 per cent) and Turkey (82 per cent), but more than four times the rate in Canada (19 per cent) or the US (23 per cent).
On gambling, 83 per cent of Indian respondents say it’s morally unacceptable—higher than the disapproval rate for extramarital affairs (77 per cent). Only Indonesia (89 per cent) ranked higher.
A major exception to the rule is extramarital affairs. While 77 per cent of Indians say affairs are morally wrong, that’s actually lower than the US (90 per cent), Turkey and Indonesia (92 per cent each), Australia (84 per cent), and the UK (81 per cent).
As for contraceptives, the world’s most populous country had a decisive attitude. While moral disapproval of contraception was in the 1-6 per cent range for most Western countries, India topped the list at 48 per cent, trailed by Nigeria at 47 per cent and Kenya at 28 per cent.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)