WASHINGTON, D.C. — At the very moment the world is seeing more countries in conflict than at any time since World War II, more people than ever say they feel safe where they live. In 2024, Gallup’s global tracking reached a new milestone: 73% of adults worldwide said they feel safe walking alone at night in their city or area.
This is the highest level recorded since Gallup began asking the question in 2006, surpassing the previous peak of 72% in 2020 and marking a 13-percentage-point increase over the past decade.
Gallup’s latest Global Safety Report highlights a world where more people feel safe than at any point in the past two decades, evidence that progress is possible even amid instability. However, it also serves as a reminder of leaders’ unfinished work to ensure safety is universal, especially for women.
This year’s report is based on interviews with more than 145,000 adults in 144 countries and territories in 2024. For the first time, Gallup partnered with the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) at New York University to pair global data with policy expertise, offering insights into not only where people feel safe but also how safety can be strengthened.
A Story of Progress Amid Instability
Global perceptions of safety rose steadily between 2014 and 2020 and then stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. The rebound in 2024 marks renewed momentum, with most of the improvement driven by gains in the Asia-Pacific, Western Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa regions.
In Asia-Pacific and Western Europe, where feelings of safety were already among the highest in the world, perceptions set new records or tied previous ones. Northern America, the Middle East and North Africa, and post-Soviet Eurasia also remained high, with large majorities in each region saying they feel safe walking alone at night.
Post-Soviet Eurasia stands out for its dramatic improvement over time. In 2006, just 37% of adults in the region said they felt safe. By 2023, that figure had nearly doubled to 71%, where it has held steady for the past two years.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, half of adults said they feel safe, marking the first time the region has reached this milestone. In sub-Saharan Africa, 53% reported feeling safe, up from a low of 49% in 2021. But this increase reflects more of a recovery than a breakthrough, bringing the region back in line with its level in earlier years.
Despite these gains, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa remain the regions where people feel the least safe globally. Both also account for the world’s highest homicide rates, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), a reminder that insecurity is rooted not only in perception but also in real risks tied to crime, weak law enforcement and limited infrastructure.
Where People Feel Least and Most Safe
Just 33% of South Africans said they feel safe walking alone at night, the lowest percentage among more than 140 countries surveyed globally. Four of its neighbors — Lesotho (34%), Botswana (34%), Zimbabwe (40%) and Eswatini (40%) — also rank among the 10 least safe countries. This concentration reflects shared challenges, including high violent crime, limited policing coverage and persistent economic pressures.
The countries where residents feel the least safe are almost exclusively located in sub-Saharan Africa or Latin America and the Caribbean, a pattern consistent year after year. Myanmar, facing conflict and unrest, was the only country outside of those two regions to make the bottom 10 in 2024.
Ecuador, though still among the least safe countries, recorded one of the world’s largest year-over-year gains. The share of Ecuadorians who feel safe rose 11 points to 38%, following a series of aggressive security interventions.
At the other end of the rankings, countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), including Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, continued to dominate the list of safest nations. Strong institutions, centralized governance and sustained investment in public security have helped keep perceptions of safety consistently high.
Spotlight: South Africa, Least Safe in the World
When Gallup first began measuring perceptions of safety in 2006, 41% of South Africans said they felt safe. Since then, despite some fluctuations, safety perceptions have rarely returned to that level. Over time, feelings of safety have averaged closer to 31%, similar to the most recent reading of 33%.
In many South African communities, especially under-resourced townships and informal settlements, crime — including assault, robbery and gender-based violence — remains a daily concern. Women face particularly high levels of insecurity: In 2024, just 25% of women said they feel safe walking alone at night, compared with 43% of men.
Spotlight: Singapore, Safest in the World
In 2024, Singaporeans were the most likely in the world to say they feel safe walking alone at night; 98% of adults reported feeling safe, one of the highest percentages Gallup has ever recorded globally.
Since Gallup first began measuring perceptions of safety in 2006, Singapore has held the No. 1 spot 12 times. Feelings of safety in the city-state have remained remarkably stable, never falling below 94% in the past five measurements.
Singapore also stands out for its gender parity. In 2024, 98% of men and 97% of women said they feel safe walking alone at night, reflecting consistently low crime, effective law enforcement and strong public order. These conditions have contributed to Singapore’s unique status as the safest country in Gallup’s global trend.
The Work Still Ahead
Even with the record high in 2024, more than one in four adults worldwide (27%) said they do not feel safe walking alone at night.
Women remain far less likely than men to feel safe, with gender gaps of at least 10 points in more than 100 countries. Globally, 67% of women said they feel safe walking alone, compared with 78% of men.
This divide is particularly sharp in some high-income countries. In the United States, for example, 58% of women said they feel safe walking alone at night, compared with 84% of men, a 26-point gender gap. If rankings were based only on women’s perceptions, the U.S. would fall to 77th globally.
The European Union is also overrepresented among countries with the world’s largest gender gaps of 26 points or more. Five of the top 10 — Italy, Malta, Greece, Cyprus and the Netherlands — are EU members.
Yet, the EU’s overrepresentation among countries with the highest gender gaps does not reflect the broader trend in the bloc where perceptions of safety generally improved in 2024.
Italy, in particular, bucked the overall trend: Just 44% of Italian women said they feel safe walking alone at night, the lowest level in the EU and the lowest for Italian women in more than a decade. That rate places them on par with women in Uganda (44%), even though 76% of Italian men reported feeling safe, similar to men in Germany (78%).
Implications
At first glance, rising feelings of safety may seem incongruous with ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, violent extremism in the Sahel, and unrest across parts of Asia and Latin America. But the data reveal something deeper: they show people’s strength and their capacity to build safety from the ground up, even in difficult conditions.
The findings from Gallup’s latest Global Safety Report show that progress is possible even amid instability. But they also serve as a reminder that true safety requires more than declining crime rates. It depends on trust in institutions, investment in communities, and a commitment to ensure that women and men alike feel secure in their daily lives.
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