Indians among the least satisfied with their love life: Study

While India is blessed with the world’s largest population—140 crores and counting—its citizens may just be suffering from a serious issue—they are unhappy with their sex life! With its sex-life satisfaction score at 63%, India ranks somewhere at the bottom of the list of countries surveyed on this front, reveals Ipsos’ Love Life Satisfaction 2025 survey. Released on the occasion of the Valentine’s Day 2025, the survey shows that just about 57% of Indian citizens are satisfied with their romantic and sex life.

When one looks at where the country stands in comparison with the globe, it is disheartening to notice that even the smaller countries from South America, including Argentina (satisfaction score: 82%), Chile (79%), Peru (79%), Brazil (71%), or the Asian countries like Thailand (81%), Indonesia (81%), Malaysia (79%), and Singapore (71%) are ahead of India on ‘Love Life Satisfaction Index’. This index measures overall contentment with love, romance, sex life, and relationships of people from different parts of the globe.

Ipsos conducted this survey between Friday, December 20, 2024 and Friday, January 3, 2025 among 23,765 adults across 30 countries. The survey results show Japan (56%) and South Korea (59%) as the only two countries with scores lower than India in the entire global list.

The survey captures a disparity between real-life satisfaction and the romantic ideals that the media presents. Interestingly, although the urban centres of Tokyo and Paris are frequently shown in movies and literature as the capitals of romance, the survey reveals an altogether different reality with the love-life satisfaction levels amongst the residents of these cities being lower than what is depicted in media.

In contrast, the countries such as Colombia, Thailand, and Indonesia emerged as top rankers in this study, indicating that the reality about satisfaction levels about love and relationships is drastically different from what the films portray.

Ipsos survey shows that although 57% report satisfaction with their romantic or sex life, 64% of Indians say they feel loved. Moreover, an even higher percentage of Indians (67%) say that they are satisfied with their relationship with their spouse. While the survey finds a correlation between satisfaction with romantic or sexual life and satisfaction with a partner, India, in addition to Brazil and South Korea, thus, mark a deviation from that trend.

Ipsos’ survey also shows patterns in how love, romance, and relationship satisfaction change in different socio-economic groups and regions. The satisfaction levels seem to be tied to people’s income levels. Among the people from the 30 countries surveyed, 83% of high-income earners mention that they are satisfied with their love life, as against 76% of middle-income earners, and 69% of low-income earners. This pattern is visible even in romantic and sexual satisfaction, with 67% of high-income earners being satisfied with their sex life but only 51% of low-income earners feel the same.

For this survey, Ipsos interviewed adults aged 18 years and older in India, aged 18-74 in Canada, Republic of Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Africa, Türkiye, and the United States, aged 20-74 in Thailand, 21-74 in Indonesia and Singapore, and 16-74 in all other countries.

The sample consisted approximately 2,000 individuals in Japan, 1,000 individuals each in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, and the US, and 500 individuals each in Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Thailand, and Türkiye.