High-income Romanians fear powerlessness in front of their loved ones, illness or financial instability, according to research presented by Mihai Barsan, founder of The Pareto Report.

“Fear of mediocrity isn’t in the top 3, but it’s a very big difference between the Pareto population and the rest of the country,” he claims. This is almost twice as much as Pareto (those with high incomes): 28%.

*The Pareto population represents the top 20% of the commercial public with higher incomes than others. It will be about 2 million people.

When it comes to quality of life, when asked to rate it (from 1 being the worst to 10 being the best), it scores an average of 7.2. The assessment remains unchanged for 3 years.

According to Barsan, this shows that if you have money, you may not suffer as much from poverty and then you will have a happier life.

“Although they are happy when it comes to recommending Romania as a country to live in, things look very different. The recommendation score is very low. If Romania was a service provider, it should change its management, name and strategy to add more confidence. In 2022, there was a sharp decline, and I associate it with the war in Ukraine,” he said.

The data show that in 2023 the indicator slightly worsened.

When asked if they believed in Romania’s potential, they saw a decrease in optimism (the average score is 7, compared to 8 in 2022).

According to him, the decline in optimism is manifested in the growth of intentions to emigrate. We have 3% of Pareto Romanians who say they will definitely emigrate next year, and twice as many in the general population.

5% of Romanians with high incomes will emigrate in the next 5 years.

“I don’t have optimism, I want to go somewhere where maybe I will find something else that will give me back this optimism,” he explained.

The sense of security has diminished somewhat, as has the sense that any child born in Romania has prospects for achievement.

For 65% of these Romanians, theft and corruption are the main obstacles to Romania’s development.

“The word corruption is something that Pareto Romanians are very sensitive to. The fight against corruption has not gone out of fashion. Romanians see it at the top of the list of problems,” Barsan explained at the Rethink event.

Ignorance and upstarts are in the second and third places.

48% of Pareto Romanians believe that the problems in life are only their fault, and 35% believe that both they and others, and the rest blame others.

As for success, 78% believe that the results are due to them.