{"id":13913,"date":"2014-10-23T10:30:32","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T15:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/where-people-say-giving-bribes-gets-you-ahead-in-life\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:21:16","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:21:16","slug":"where-people-say-giving-bribes-gets-you-ahead-in-life","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/10\/23\/where-people-say-giving-bribes-gets-you-ahead-in-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Where people say giving bribes gets you ahead in life"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bribery<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

Whether it\u2019s to cover up a scandal or score a business contract, acts of bribery are\u00a0common<\/a>\u00a0throughout the world.<\/p>\n\n

We recently asked people in 44 countries<\/a> how important certain attributes are for getting ahead in life (with 0 meaning \u201cnot important at all\u201d and 10 meaning \u201cvery important\u201d). While \u201cgiving bribes\u201d ranks at the bottom compared with other factors (\u201chaving a good education\u201d tops the list), several countries stand out for their scores when it comes to greasing the palm.<\/p>\n\n

The countries where\u00a0people are most likely to say bribes are important<\/a> are China (with a 5.5 average rating on the 10-point scale), Jordan (5.0) and Russia (4.5); and those least likely to do so are Brazil (0.8), El Salvador (1.4) and Colombia (1.5). (The U.S. is\u00a0near the low end of the scale with a 2.5 rating.)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

In China, bribery is a recurring issue, so much so that Communist Party officials focused their 2014\u00a0plenum<\/a> on anti-corruption efforts, among other rule-of-law topics. One of the most popular acts of bribery in China is gift-giving to secure government contracts, according to a 2012 World Bank survey<\/a> of the Chinese business sector.<\/p>\n\n

To gain more insights, we looked at the distributions of people\u2019s responses on bribery on the\u00a00-to-10 scale within each country\u2019s population.<\/p>\n\n

In our survey, the Chinese public tends to rate the importance of \u201cgiving bribes to get ahead in life\u201d as somewhat important (half rated it between a 6 and a 9). Just\u00a03% say bribery is very important (rating of 10), and 5% say\u00a0it is\u00a0not important at all (rating of 0). Whether young or old, male or female \u2013 the Chinese public views bribery similarly.<\/p>\n\n

By contrast, people in Tunisia are more polarized on their views of bribery. While the average score is 4.1, more people choose either 0 or 10 than any other rating in between (41% choose 0, 24% choose 10). It\u2019s worth noting, though, that a higher share of Tunisians choose 10 than people in any other country surveyed.<\/p>\n\n

Younger Tunisians (ages 18 to 29) are also more likely than older Tunisians\u00a0(ages 50 and older) to say giving bribes is very important, choosing a 10 by a 30% to 19% margin; whereas older Tunisians are more likely to say it is not important at all (50% vs. 32% select 0).<\/p>\n\n

In Brazil, the country least likely to say giving bribes is important, a solid majority (74%) says bribes are not important at all. In the U.S. \u2013 where money\u2019s influence in politics also makes plenty of headlines<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 47% say giving bribes is not important at all for getting ahead, and 6% say it is very important.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whether it\u2019s to cover up a scandal or score a business contract \u2013 the act of bribery is widespread across the world. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"apple_news_api_pending":"1713063827","relatedPosts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0},"categories":[234,453,371,77],"bylines":[725],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[525],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-13913","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","category-business-workplace","category-leisure","category-lifestyle","category-trust-in-government","bylines-george-gao","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-global"],"label":"Short Read","post_parent":0,"word_count":413,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/10\/23\/where-people-say-giving-bribes-gets-you-ahead-in-life\/","art_direction":{"A1":{"id":25783,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/10\/FT_14.10.22_bribesImportant.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/10\/FT_14.10.22_bribesImportant.png?w=564&h=317&crop=1","width":564,"height":317,"chartArt":false},"A2":{"id":25783,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/10\/FT_14.10.22_bribesImportant.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/10\/FT_14.10.22_bribesImportant.png?w=268&h=151&crop=1","width":268,"height":151,"chartArt":false},"A3":{"id":25783,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/10\/FT_14.10.22_bribesImportant.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/10\/FT_14.10.22_bribesImportant.png?w=194&h=110&crop=1","width":194,"height":110,"chartArt":false},"A4":{"id":25783,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/10\/FT_14.10.22_bribesImportant.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/10\/FT_14.10.22_bribesImportant.png?w=268&h=151&crop=1","width":268,"height":151,"chartArt":false},"XL":{"id":25783,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/10\/FT_14.10.22_bribesImportant.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/10\/FT_14.10.22_bribesImportant.png?w=640&h=405&crop=1","width":640,"height":405,"chartArt":false},"social":{"id":25783,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/10\/FT_14.10.22_bribesImportant.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2014\/10\/FT_14.10.22_bribesImportant.png?w=640&h=419&crop=1","width":640,"height":419,"chartArt":false}},"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Where people say giving bribes gets you ahead in life","description":"Whether it\u2019s to cover up a scandal or score a business contract \u2013 the act of bribery is widespread across the world. 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