Decision-making changes with pressure, information, relationships, and trust in institutions. In 2021, 32% of U.S. adults said pandemic stress sometimes made basic choices difficult, while 81% said they relied a lot on their own research before an important decision in 2018. In 2025, 42% of people across OECD countries thought national-government decisions were likely to use the best available evidence.
Table of contents
- Everyday decision strain under stress
- How people research important decisions
- Household and couple decision-making
- Evidence in government decisions
- Public responsiveness and cooperation
- Long-term trade-offs and integrity
Everyday decision strain under stress
Stress can affect both routine choices and major life decisions. The American Psychological Association’s Stress in America™ 2021: Stress and Decision-making during the Pandemic measured U.S. adults in 2021 and found that 32% said pandemic stress sometimes made basic decisions, such as what to wear or eat, difficult. The same survey found that 36% said day-to-day decisions were more stressful during the pandemic than before it, and 35% said major life decisions were more stressful.
Reported difficulty varied by generation. Among U.S. adults, 48% of millennials said pandemic stress sometimes made basic decisions difficult. The comparable figures were 37% for Gen Z, 32% for Gen X, 14% for boomers, and 3% for older adults. These figures describe reported experience in 2021; they do not establish that age itself caused the differences.
Family responsibilities were also associated with higher reported decision strain. Parents of children under 18 were more likely than non-parents to say day-to-day decisions had become more stressful: 47%, compared with 30%. For major decisions, the corresponding figures were 44% for parents and 31% for non-parents. Among parents of children ages 0–4, 54% said day-to-day decisions had become more stressful.
| 2021 U.S. measure | Share reporting the experience |
|---|---|
| Basic decisions difficult for all adults | 32% |
| Day-to-day decisions more stressful | 36% |
| Major life decisions more stressful | 35% |
| Parents of children under 18: day-to-day decisions | 47% |
| Non-parents: day-to-day decisions | 30% |
| Parents of children under 18: major decisions | 44% |
| Non-parents: major decisions | 31% |
The pattern matters for anyone interpreting decision-making statistics: a survey may capture the decision environment as much as the decision itself. Routine choices can become harder when people are coping with elevated stress, and the same context can extend to consequential choices.
How people research important decisions
Research is a central part of how U.S. adults approach important decisions. Pew Research Center’s 2018 findings, reported in “Most Americans rely on their own research in making big decisions, and it’s often online,” found that 81% relied a lot on their own research before making an important decision. Including people who relied on research either a lot or a little, the share was 96%.
Other sources of input were less common when respondents described what they relied on a lot. Friends and family were cited by 43% of U.S. adults, while professional experts were cited by 31%. The figures describe reliance, not whether the information was accurate or whether a particular decision produced a good outcome.
Among adults who described their own research, 46% cited digital tools as part of the process. Other reported inputs included advice from other people at 25%, prior education or life experience at 11%, print media at 8%, and religious wisdom at 4%. These categories show that personal research can combine online tools with social, experiential, printed, and spiritual sources.
The results also distinguish the act of researching from the method used to research. Almost all adults said they relied on their own research at least a little, but the sources within that research varied. For decision guides, that distinction is useful: asking whether someone “does research” does not reveal whether the process is primarily digital, interpersonal, expert-led, or based on previous experience.
Household and couple decision-making
Decision-making in couples is often shared, but responsibility can also be concentrated in one partner. Pew Research Center’s 2008 report “Women Call the Shots at Home; Public Mixed on Gender Roles in Jobs” found that 43% of U.S. couples had a woman making decisions in more tested household areas than the man. In 26% of couples, the man made decisions in more tested areas than the woman, while 31% split decision-making responsibilities equally across the tested areas.
Specific household choices showed a substantial joint-decision role. In 46% of U.S. couples, partners jointly decided their shared weekend activities. Six percent had neither partner as the regular decision-maker for weekend activities. Family financial decisions were jointly shared by 28% of couples.
Financial responsibility could look different depending on whether the question was asked about the couple’s overall category or a respondent’s own role. Overall, 38% of couples were categorized as having women manage household finances, and 30% as having men manage them. Among women respondents, 45% said they managed household finances, while 23% said their partner did. Among men respondents, 37% said they managed household finances.
Major purchases for the home were jointly decided by 46% of U.S. couples. Where one partner led those purchases, 30% of couples had the woman as the lead and 19% had the man as the lead. These measures come from 2008, so they describe that survey period and should not be treated as current estimates of household behavior.
Evidence in government decisions
Public judgments about decision quality depend partly on whether people believe governments use evidence. The OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions 2026 Results reported measures for 2025. Across OECD countries, 42% of people found it likely that national-government decisions used the best available evidence, while 37% found that unlikely. The OECD average for people who viewed public services as adapting to changing societal needs was 40%.
The survey also reported a strong country-level relationship between perceived evidence-informed decisions and adaptive public services. The correlation was 0.77, and the country-level R² was 0.6. These are associations across countries, not proof that one measure directly caused the other.
Perceptions of evidence use were connected with trust. People who viewed national-government decisions as evidence-informed were 6.0 percentage points more likely to report high or moderately high trust in national government. Perceived evidence-informed decision-making was also associated with 2.2–3.5 percentage-point higher trust in legislatures, the civil service, and local government.
The OECD’s 2024 Serving Citizens survey found that 23 of 31 reporting countries collected data related to performance targets, while 16 of 31 incorporated performance-target data into decision-making processes. Collection and use are therefore different stages: having performance information available does not mean it is incorporated into decisions.
Country and time comparisons should remain explicit. In Korea, the share viewing government decisions as evidence-informed rose by 11 percentage points from 2023 to 2025. That change is a country-specific comparison over time, not an OECD-wide result.
Public responsiveness and cooperation
Evidence is only one part of public expectations. In 2025, 39% of people across OECD countries found it likely that a national policy would change if a majority opposed it, while 41% found that unlikely. Among 17 OECD countries with three-wave data, the share expecting policy adaptation rose by 2 percentage points from 2021 to 2025 and by 3 percentage points from 2023 to 2025.
| OECD public decision measure | 2025 share |
|---|---|
| National policy likely to change after majority opposition | 39% |
| National policy unlikely to change after majority opposition | 41% |
| Government likely to cooperate with key stakeholders | 37% |
| Neutral on stakeholder cooperation | 18% |
| Government unlikely to cooperate with key stakeholders | 38% |
Cooperation with stakeholders was also viewed cautiously. Thirty-seven percent found it likely that government could cooperate with key stakeholders on long-term challenges, 18% gave a neutral response, and 38% found it unlikely. The distribution leaves a relatively large share expressing doubt or neutrality, which is relevant when assessing whether formal decision processes are expected to produce coordinated action.
Together, the responsiveness and cooperation figures describe perceived capacity, not a count of policies that actually changed. They measure how people across OECD countries viewed government behavior in 2025, with the multi-wave comparisons limited to the 17 countries reported by the OECD.
Long-term trade-offs and integrity
Long-term decision-making involves weighing current interests against future generations. In 2025, 34% of people across OECD countries were confident that government balanced current and future generations’ interests, while 44% were not confident. Across 29 OECD countries with comparable data, confidence in intergenerational balancing fell from 38% in 2023 to 35% in 2025.
The same OECD findings linked this perception with trust. People especially confident about intergenerational balancing were 4.2 percentage points more likely to trust the national government and 2.6 percentage points more likely to trust the legislature. These are reported associations, so they should not be read as proof that confidence in one government practice independently produces trust.
Integrity expectations were similarly mixed. Thirty-two percent of people across OECD countries found it likely that a politician would refuse a lucrative private-sector job in exchange for a political favour. In participating OECD accession countries, the corresponding figure was 34%. Thirty-two percent across OECD countries also found it likely that government would refuse a corporation’s harmful policy demand, while 41% found that unlikely.
These statistics place long-term trade-offs and integrity in the same decision-making picture as stress, research, and household roles. People make choices under different constraints, gather information through different channels, divide responsibility in different ways, and judge public decisions partly through evidence, responsiveness, cooperation, and perceived resistance to private pressure. The measurement periods and populations differ, so the figures are best read as distinct indicators rather than combined into one overall decision-making score.