People's opinion on former colonies 2019| ��ƽ��

Share of respondents who felt that the areas colonized by their country's former empire are now better off in 2019

Characteristic	Better off	Neither better nor worse off	Don't know	Worse off
Britain	33%	21%	28%	17%
Japan	32%	42%	16%	10%
France	30%	17%	30%	24%
Netherlands	27%	36%	20%	17%
Spain	23%	35%	21%	21%
Belgium	18%	31%	23%	28%
Italy	15%	35%	23%	27%
Germany (1871-1918)	13%	33%	37%	17%

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Release date

March 2020

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Region

Worldwide

Survey time period

June 10, 2019 to December 17, 2019

Supplementary notes

The original question was: Overall do you think the countries that were colonized by [COUNTRY] are better off or worse off for being colonized, or has it made no difference?

Totals may not add up to 100 due to rounding.

Sample sizes were as follows:
Netherlands - 1,002
United Kingdom - 1,684
France - 1,003
Belgium - 1,004
Italy - 1,027
Japan - 1,023
Spain - 1,016
Germany - 2,172

Citation formats

When asked if people felt that their country's former colonies are now better or worse off because of colonization, the most common response was that colonization had left neither a positive nor negative legacy on these countries today, and the second most common answer was that the respondents did not know. In Britain and Japan, approximately one third of respondents felt that their countries' former colonies were now better off as a result of colonialism, while only 13 percent of respondents in Germany felt this way. Belgium and Italy had the highest share of respondents who felt that their countries' former colonies were now worse off due to colonialism. France had the highest combined share of respondents who felt their former colonies were better or worse off, suggesting that they had the strongest opinions on the subject; in contrast to the seventy percent of Germans who felt that their former colonies were neither better nor worse of or did not know how to answer.