The 'most people' Jev imagines never goes hungry

Asked how often most people go without food, water, medicine or cash, or how often they use the internet, what does Jev say, and how does that compare with what 50,000 people across 39 African countries report?

result26 questions

Asked how often most people go without cash income, food, fuel, clean water or medicine, Jev answers "never" 92% of the time on average; across 39 African countries, 37% of people say never. Its "most people" use the internet every day (100%); among the African respondents, 46% never do.

cash income91% · 19%

food97% · 41%

fuel98% · 49%

clean water for home use98% · 43%

medicines78% · 34%

Jev's 'most people'respondents who never went without

How to read this: One pair of bars per basic need. Each bar is the share saying they never went without it in the past year: grey for the survey's respondents, pink for what Jev thinks most people would say.

5 deprivation items and 7 media items, about 50,000 respondents each.

In short

Jev's imagined typical person almost never goes without basics: it says they never lacked food 97% of the time, against 41% of African respondents.
The widest gap is cash income: Jev says 91% never went without it, while 19% of respondents across 39 countries said so.
Any answer Jev gives about what "most people" do, want or can afford starts from this comfortable, always-online default.

What the data shows

One Does Not Simply meme: One does not simply go without food or medicine, says Jev's "most people" (92%). In the surveys: 37%. — One does not simply go without food or medicine, says Jev's "most people" (92%). In the surveys: 37%.

Jev's default almost never goes without. On average across the five needs, Jev says "never" 92% of the time; the respondents, 37%.
Food: "never" 97% for Jev, 41% for the respondents. Cash income: 91% against 19%. Medicine: 78% against 34%.
Always online. Jev's "most people" use the internet every day (100%) and social media every day (99%). Among respondents, about half never use either (46% for the internet, 48% for social media).

What it means, and what it doesn't

Jev's "most people" is someone whose basic needs are almost always met and who is online every day. That's a reasonable picture of a well-off country, and a wrong one for a large share of humanity. Any answer Jev gives about what "most people" do, want or can afford inherits that default.

It doesn't mean Jev doesn't know about poverty. Asked about Africa specifically it might answer quite differently; the point is what it assumes when nobody specifies.

Caveats

Jev wasn't asked about Africa. Jev was asked about "most people", not about Africans. The comparison shows the default person Jev imagines, not what it knows about life in Africa, which it might answer very differently if asked directly.
One region. Afrobarometer covers 39 African countries, pooled without weighting countries by population. For most of the world the true "most people" answer is somewhere between these respondents and Jev's picture; no single survey covers everyone.
A small set of items. Five deprivation items and seven media items (the internet asked twice), each with about 50,000 answers. The contrast is large, but it rests on a handful of questions.

Jev on this experiment

Would a person find it interesting to read?: Yes79%
Does it describe you?: No56%
Would you have predicted it?: No51%
How fair is the comparison?: The comparison is shaky
How much should a reader rely on it?: A little
Which caveat matters most?: Jev wasn't asked about Africa91%

Why ask this

Whenever a model answers "most people would...", it's picturing someone. If that someone always has food, running water, a phone and the internet, every guess about "most people" quietly describes a comfortable minority of the world.

That default leaks into advice: a budget tip, a health suggestion or a product pitch aimed at "most people" is sized for whoever the model pictures. Afrobarometer asks tens of thousands of people across Africa how often they went without basic needs in the past year; putting the same questions to Jev about "most people" shows who its default person is.

How this was done

The people and the data

Afrobarometer Round 9 (2021 to 2023): face-to-face interviews with 53,444 adults in 39 African countries, pooled into one group without weighting countries by their populations. This experiment uses its lived-poverty items (how often have you gone without enough food, clean water, medicine, fuel, cash income) and its media-use items (internet, social media, phone, radio, television, newspapers). Each item has about 50,000 answers. Political and trust items are left out.

What Jev was asked

The survey's own questions, with its answer options, answered as what Jev thinks most people would say:

Over the past year, how often, if ever, have you or anyone in your family gone without enough food to eat?
never · always · many times · several times · just once or twice

How it was measured

For the basic needs, the share answering "never": for Jev's "most people" and for the respondents. For media, the share saying "never" and "every day".