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Throughout 2020, Dynata has been reporting on the shifts in consumer trends as the pandemic has spread across the globe, looking at some of the more immediate and potential longer-term effects on the attitudes, behaviors and opinions of people around the world. Today, more than six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, unprecedented changes to our personal and professional lives – first documented in our earlier reports (Understanding the Pandemic, The New Normal and The Reopening) – are evident in how (and where) we work, shop, pay, spend our time, dine out, travel and exercise, as well as how businesses and industries have fared during this time. Yet, as some of those aspects have stabilized, other parts of our daily lives, including schooling and where we live, continue to shift.
Now that many businesses, civic and social institutions have reopened, we’re turning our attention to understanding the deeper impact of the pandemic. In this report, Global Consumer Trends: The Economy, we’re taking a closer look at the impact of pandemic-induced economic changes on consumer trends. Additionally, we compared those indicators to some of our earlier reports, looking for significant trends and their effects on local, national and global economies and lifestyles. As seen through the opinions and attitudes of 9,542 consumers in nine countries across the globe, our examination of consumer confidence and financial security, retail and commerce, the future of work, the impact on remote learning and the recent reported phenomenon of COVID-19 “deurbanization” provide clues to the reality of our world today and the optimism for our lives tomorrow and beyond.
Key findings:
- People feel more productive working from home; however, work-life balance has decreased across all countries and generations since the beginning of 2020.
- Awareness for the gig economy continues to grow, yet fewer people report working in it.
- Concern for household finances and national economies remain elevated, but have decreased since the beginning of the pandemic.
- The early stages of the pandemic were marked by increased vacancies in many cities; it appears, however, the flight from those cities may have been a temporary phenomenon.
- As children have transitioned from the classroom to remote learning, responsibility for overseeing remote learning for younger children falls more on women in the household.
- More people are shopping online for essential items during the pandemic (as compared to prior offline levels), with the largest growth in the grocery sector.