Ukrainians most concerned about children's future, poverty, and education quality during war – Rating Group study
In conditions of war, 88% of surveyed Ukrainians perceive the risk of children growing up in poverty as an acute concern, 85% are worried about the quality of education, and 84% are troubled by the fact that very few people manage to escape poverty.
These are the results of a sociological study conducted by the Rating Group on April 15-17, 2026.
"In the conditions of war, Ukrainians most acutely perceive the risk that children in the future will grow up in poverty (88% concerned, including 74% very concerned). The top three concerns also include the quality of education (85% overall and 59% very concerned) and poverty (84% overall and 57% very concerned)," the Rating Group said in a report received by the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Friday.
The second position in the ranking of concerns is occupied by anxiety regarding the fact that too few people are able to escape poverty (57% very concerned, 27% somewhat concerned).
Rating Group presented the fifth edition of the special research project "Common Contours." This time, the study examined which social issues regarding the country’s future most worry Ukrainians during the full-scale war. This data was compared with the concerns held by EU citizens. The study compared its own data with Eurobarometer data—a series of official EU surveys from the European Commission and the European Parliament.
The report said that at a general level, the responses of Ukrainians are quite similar to the average indicators in EU countries. In some places, the differences lie not so much in the total percentage of people worried about a certain issue, but in the intensity of that concern.
For example, Ukrainians experience much more intense concern than the average EU citizen regarding poverty (74% in Ukraine are very concerned about child poverty versus 40% in the EU; 57% in Ukraine are very concerned about poverty in general versus 37% in the EU), education quality (59% versus 39%), and population aging (41% versus 26%).
Conversely, Ukrainians are somewhat less concerned about political divisions and climate change than the average in the EU: for political divisions, 63% are concerned in Ukraine versus 72% in the EU; for climate change, 64% in Ukraine versus 78% in the EU. This means that while climate and political divisions also significantly worry Ukrainians, in the conditions of war, these issues are relatively secondary to socio-economic and humanitarian matters.
The survey was conducted using the CATI (Computer-Assisted Telephone Interview) method with a sample size of 1,000 respondents. The sample represents a random selection of mobile phone numbers (the population of Ukraine aged 18 and older in all regions except temporarily occupied territories and areas lacking Ukrainian mobile service). The results were weighted using current data from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine. The sample is representative by age, gender, and settlement type (margin of error no more than 3.1% with a confidence level of 0.95).
Ukrainian survey data (Rating Group) was compared with EU data from the Special Eurobarometer 559 study "Investing in Fairness" (January-February 2025). The questionnaire mirrored the questions used in that survey.
