JOHANNESBURG - Households across 33 countries expect inflation to keep climbing, and the financial pressure behind that expectation is sharpest in the cost of food, electricity and transport, according to a new IPSOS survey.
The findings land at a moment when global conflict is driving up living costs. They carry a clear message for markets and policymakers: disinflation is not the same as price relief. Natalie Otte, chief executive of IPSOS South Africa, framed the distinction in terms consumers understand well. Lower inflation, she explained, does not mean prices fall. It simply means prices stop rising as quickly.
For South African households, that distinction matters because the increases have already been absorbed into budgets. Otte said people have started getting used to the higher costs of essentials and are trying to adapt, but they still feel very uncertain about the future.
That uncertainty, in the survey’s reading, is not only a product of wars and global conflict, though Otte identified those as the main driver coming through at the moment. It is also shaped by the state of the global economy and by national government policies. In South Africa specifically, she pointed to interest rate levels, unemployment and taxes as significant contributors to how people perceive the rising cost of living.
The economic stakes are considerable. Consumer expectations of continued inflation influence spending behaviour, wage demands and confidence, all of which feed back into market conditions and the policy decisions of treasuries and central banks. When households believe prices will keep rising, they adjust their financial planning accordingly. Otte’s comments suggest South Africans are already doing exactly that, building higher costs into their budgets rather than expecting reversal.
Meanwhile, the survey’s breadth gives the findings a global dimension. People across the 33 surveyed markets expect inflation to keep rising, with wars and global conflict cited as forces pushing up living costs. That places South Africa’s experience within a wider pattern rather than marking it out as an outlier, even though the domestic factors Otte listed give the local picture its own texture.
For businesses and operators, the survey points to a consumer base that has adapted to higher prices but remains fragile in its outlook. Uncertainty about the future, driven by interest rates, unemployment and taxes alongside global instability, shapes how households allocate spending. Otte’s assessment suggests that the adaptation South Africans have managed on food, electricity and transport has come at the cost of confidence, not in place of it.
The policy implications are equally clear. Otte’s remarks tie public perception of the cost of living directly to government policy and to interest rate levels, positioning those levers alongside geopolitical conflict as determinants of household sentiment. For economic decision-makers, the survey suggests that even if headline inflation moderates, the perception of rising living costs can persist as long as prices remain at their elevated levels and as long as unemployment, taxation and borrowing costs weigh on household finances.
What emerges from the IPSOS findings is a picture of consumers who understand the arithmetic of disinflation better than the terminology might suggest. They know that a slowing rate of increase is not a decrease, and they have adjusted their budgets to reflect that reality. But the adjustment has not resolved the underlying uncertainty, which Otte attributed to a combination of global conflict, the state of the world economy, national government policy, interest rates, taxes and unemployment.
For investors, operators and market-watchers, the survey is a reminder that consumer sentiment tracks the level of prices, not just the rate of change, and that in South Africa the domestic policy environment remains as much a part of the inflation story as the wars driving costs upward globally. Whether that sentiment turns will depend less on the inflation print than on whether prices, jobs and borrowing costs start to ease.