Nepal Survey Finds 70% See Country on Wrong Course as Jobs and Corruption Dominate Concerns

Public confidence falls despite hopes for political change

Seven in 10 Nepalis said their country was moving in the wrong direction in a survey conducted in January and February 2026, after the youth movement of September 8 and 9, 2025. Only 17.5% saw Nepal heading in the right direction, while 75.1% wanted more job opportunities in their local areas.

The findings in the national survey report, A Survey of the Nepali People in 2025, show a country increasingly concerned about corruption, livelihoods and accountability. They also reveal a sharp contrast: 53.8% expected the Gen Z movement to take Nepal in the right direction, even while most respondents judged the country's current direction negatively.

Kathmandu University School of Arts launched the report on October 7. The fifth edition of a survey series dating to 2017 combines interviews completed before the movement with a nationally representative follow-up conducted in 2026.

Before the protests, 23.7% thought Nepal was moving in the right direction and 61.8% thought it was moving in the wrong direction. By the follow-up, optimism had fallen another 6.2 percentage points and pessimism had risen 8.2 points. A percentage point measures the gap between two percentages.

Local conditions showed an even steeper change in public opinion. The share saying their area was improving fell from 54.4% before the movement to 10.1% afterward. Jobs and quality education displaced physical infrastructure as the public's first development priority, bringing expectations about everyday opportunities to the centre of the findings.

How the survey captured a period of upheaval

Researchers originally planned to interview 8,211 people in 2025. Protests, strikes, road blockades and political unrest interrupted fieldwork, which ended with 6,394 completed interviews. The research team treated those responses as the survey before the Gen Z movement and subsequently interviewed 1,428 people for the nationally representative follow-up.

The two surveys asked people to look back over different periods. Most questions in 2025 concerned the preceding year, while most follow-up questions concerned the preceding six months or conditions at the time of interview. Those different reference periods matter when comparing the size and speed of changes in opinion.

The main dates trace how the research developed:

• 2017: The Survey of the Nepali People began tracking experiences of governance, services, economic opportunities and political participation.
• 2020: Optimism about Nepal's direction reached its highest recorded level, at 65.6%.
• 2022: The right direction rating fell to 41.7%.
• September 8 and 9, 2025: The Gen Z movement took place, corresponding to Bhadra 23 and 24, 2082, in Nepal's calendar.
• January and February 2026: Researchers conducted the follow-up survey.
• October 7: Kathmandu University School of Arts hosted the report's launch.

The survey series is a collaboration between Kathmandu University School of Arts, Interdisciplinary Analysts and The Asia Foundation. The latest edition received support through the Subnational Governance Program, implemented under a partnership between the Australian Government and The Asia Foundation, with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

A decline that began before September

Nepal's fall in optimism stretches across several survey rounds. The share saying the country was moving in the right direction stood at 52.9% in 2017 and 51.4% in 2018, rose to 65.6% in 2020, then declined to 41.7% in 2022, 23.7% in 2025 and 17.5% in 2026.

The latest figure is 48.1 percentage points below the 2020 peak. Most of that decline had already occurred before the September movement, placing the protests within a longer period of public dissatisfaction.

Provincial results show how widely confidence had weakened. In Sudurpaschim, the right direction rating fell from 46.9% in 2022 to 17.8% before the movement in 2025. In Lumbini, it declined from 54.2% to 26.2% over the same period.

Corruption becomes the leading national concern

Corruption was the most frequently identified national problem in the latest surveys. The proportion citing increasing corruption rose from 58.9% before the movement to 63.4% in the follow-up, an increase of 4.5 percentage points.

The longer trend is striking. Only 8.9% identified corruption as a major national problem in 2017 and 10.6% did so in 2018. The figure rose to 47.0% in 2020, slipped to 39.7% in 2022, then climbed again. In 2025, concern was especially high among people with a bachelor's degree or higher, at 65.7%.

Respondents also wanted specific local action. In the follow-up, 29.1% expected corruption to be controlled and 16.9% called for action against corrupt individuals. Those demands appeared alongside expectations for jobs, roads, schools and agricultural services.

The research asked about personal encounters with unofficial payments as well as broader views about corruption. Just 2.2% reported making unofficial payments when paying taxes. These questions capture different experiences: a person can judge the conduct of political leaders and public institutions while having little direct contact with bribery at a tax office. Because bribery is illegal, willingness to disclose it also affects survey answers.

Nepal's Corruption Perceptions Index score has hovered around 34 to 35 on a scale where higher scores indicate a cleaner public sector. That index gathers assessments of public sector corruption, while the national survey records citizens' concerns and experiences. Together, they describe persistent dissatisfaction with governance from different perspectives.

Work and household finances move to the foreground

Difficulty earning a living or finding work was cited as a national problem by 54.5% in the follow-up, compared with 46.2% in 2025 and 18.9% in 2022. The increase between the two latest surveys was 8.3 percentage points, larger than the increase for corruption, economic deterioration or rising prices.

Concern about the deteriorating economy reached 40.5%, up from 15.3% in 2022. The survey report gives the 2025 figure as 36.1%; a published summary gives 32.9% for that earlier comparison. Only 6.8% in the follow-up said the national economy was moving in the right direction, compared with 16.3% in 2025 and 56.0% in 2020.

Household assessments were similarly subdued: only 10.5% said their household's economic situation had improved. Rising prices of essential goods were identified as a major national problem by 32.9%, compared with 31.1% in 2025 and 28.6% in 2022.

Employment concerns also shaped how respondents assessed Nepal's constitutional era. Asked about the biggest gap in the decade since the Constitution was adopted, 63.2% in 2025 identified youth unemployment and the migration it forces. Their answer connects the national debate about governance to a concrete family concern: whether young people can find a viable livelihood at home.

Local progress gives way to a sense of stagnation

Local government presents a complicated picture. Across the survey series, respondents generally viewed its capacity to deliver services as improving. Yet the latest findings show much weaker confidence in the condition of their own areas and falling satisfaction with some services.

The share saying their local area was improving fell from 78.5% in 2020 to 54.4% before the movement in 2025 and 10.1% in the follow-up. In 2026, 68.4% said conditions were about the same, compared with 29.6% in 2025. Those reporting deterioration rose from 15.1% to 20.0%. Most respondents therefore described stagnation rather than worsening conditions.

Roads remained valuable to the smaller group who saw improvement. Among those respondents in 2026, 65.6% credited better roads, 35.9% improved drinking water, 35.3% electricity and 32.8% better access to health services. These percentages refer to people who reported improvement, rather than everyone interviewed.

Average satisfaction scores nevertheless declined between 2020 and 2025, from 6.3 to 5.5 for health services and from 6.3 to 5.6 for roads. Education satisfaction stood at 5.7 in both 2025 and 2026. The findings point to rising expectations about the quality of services alongside demand for broader access.

What communities want local governments to do

More job opportunities topped local expectations, rising from 66.5% in 2025 to 75.1% in 2026. Difficulty earning a living was also the most frequently cited local problem, at 55.5%, up from 40.1% before the movement.

Infrastructure remained part of daily life. In the follow-up, 38.6% wanted better management of roads and trails, although that was down from 51.9% in 2025. Local problems included rising prices at 33.3%, deteriorating roads at 31.3%, and delays in obtaining irrigation, fertilizer and seeds at 26.0%.

Provincial and geographic differences show why local priorities vary. In 2025, 27.9% in Madhesh identified basic and secondary education as the service local governments should prioritise. In Gandaki, education and roads were almost level, at 26.2% and 26.1%. Karnali respondents placed greater weight on roads, at 23.8%, and drinking water, at 22.6%.

Age and settlement also mattered. Education led among people aged 18 to 24, at 30.3%, while respondents aged 50 and above most frequently prioritised roads, at 21.6%. Urban municipality respondents most often chose education, while rural municipality respondents gave greater priority to local and agricultural roads.

Accountability meetings reach few citizens

Public hearings, meetings where residents can raise questions with local authorities, had limited visibility. Awareness fell from 23.2% in 2020 to 20.8% in 2022, 15.1% in 2025 and 10.2% in the follow-up.

Participation was limited even among those who knew hearings had taken place. In 2026, 68.8% of that group said they had attended none, 28.5% had attended some and 2.8% had attended most. Only 12.2% of respondents knew about local government projects.

Willingness to pay additional local taxes in return for improved services also fell, from 77.6% in 2017 to 45.6% in 2026. For local authorities, the findings connect financing and public engagement: fewer residents expressed readiness to contribute more, while few knew about formal opportunities to question spending and service decisions.

Dr. Dhiraj Giri, the survey's principal investigator at Kathmandu University School of Arts, described its purpose as bringing citizens' experiences into policy discussions.

By bringing citizens' perspectives into public debate, it can help policymakers and development partners better understand where expectations are changing and where more responsive action is needed.

Support for the movement coexists with wider disappointment

The Gen Z movement was known to 98.7% of respondents. Asked about its causes, 79.8% cited the campaign against corruption and 63.6% cited demands to lift restrictions on social media. Accountability and access to online platforms were closely connected in how people understood the protests.

Expectations about the movement were more positive than assessments of Nepal's current direction. While 53.8% expected it to take the country in the right direction, 40.2% expected the opposite. Asked about its effect on politics, 23.8% anticipated positive change and 26.8% expected partial change.

Friends, family and neighbours were a source of information for 63%, while social media platforms were a source for 61%. Those channels help explain the broad reach of debates about employment, corruption and public services.

Social attitudes offered a more positive picture than political and economic assessments. Some 85.3% rejected giving sons greater importance than daughters, and 92.7% rejected the view that women should not work outside the home. Acceptance of marriage between people of different castes reached 76% in the survey before the movement.

Nepalis expressed support for political change and social equality while demanding more tangible results from government. The clearest expectations concerned work, quality education, reliable services and action against corruption. The survey brings those demands together at a moment when confidence in the country's direction has reached its lowest recorded level.

Key Points

• In the 2026 follow-up, 70% said Nepal was moving in the wrong direction and 17.5% said it was moving in the right direction.
• Corruption was cited as a major national problem by 63.4%, while 54.5% cited difficulty earning a living or finding work.
• Only 6.8% were optimistic about the national economy, and 75.1% wanted more local job opportunities.
• The share reporting improvement in their local area fell from 54.4% before the movement to 10.1% afterward.
• Some 53.8% expected the Gen Z movement to take Nepal in the right direction despite broader pessimism.
• The research combined 6,394 interviews in 2025 with 1,428 in 2026; the surveys used different reference periods.