Personal ValuesValues Research & Tools

Personal value statistics: Freedom

Freedom appeared in the ranked ten of 28.0% of the 2,131,634 assessments completed since 2020, which makes it the 9th most frequently ranked of the 62 core values.

By , founder of personalvalu.esData updated

What freedom means as a value →

At a glance, 2020 to 2026

Appearance rateof assessments rank it in their ten. 9th of 62 values.
28.0%
First placeof assessments put it first. 9th of 62 on this measure.
2.8%
Top threeof assessments put it in the top three. 24% of those who rank it.
6.8%
Average positionis its mean position, out of ten, where it is ranked at all.
6.3

In the overall ranking freedom sits just below Pleasure (29.7%) and just above Friendship (24.9%).

How the Popularity of Freedom Has Changed

In 2020 freedom appeared in 29.7% of assessments and ranked 8th. In 2026 so far it appeared in 24.0% and ranked 11th, a fall of 5.7 percentage points.

Pick a measure, and read it by year or month by month. A month holds a few thousand assessments, so it moves more than a year does. The gaps are months the archive has no data for.

Freedom, year by year

Each rank is among the 62 values that year, by appearance rate. The arrow is its move from the year before.

Freedom by year: assessments, appearance rate and rank, first place, top three and average position
YearAssessmentsAppearance rateRankFirst placeTop threeAverage position
202084,37829.7%8th3.2%7.2%6.4
2021224,09630.9%8th3.1%7.0%6.5
2022179,27130.3%8th3.1%7.0%6.5
2023397,24929.3%8th2.9%6.6%6.5
2024460,24429.0%8th2.8%6.5%6.5
2025449,23326.1%9th▼12.5%6.5%6.1
2026 so far337,16324.0%11th▼22.5%7.2%5.5

2020 holds 6 months of data and 2022 holds 7 months of data, so their figures cover part of the year. 2026 covers January to October 2026.

Freedom by Country

Of the 26 countries with enough assessments to publish, participants in Vietnam rank freedom most often, at 37.5%, and those in South Africa least often, at 15.7%.

Country is recorded for the assessments from December 2025 to October 2026, so this section reads those 300,899 assessments and compares each country with all of them.

Where freedom is ranked most often

23.4% of participants rank freedom in their top ten, from 37.5% in Vietnam to 15.7% in South Africa. Tap or hover a country to see its top values.

  • 15–19%
  • 19–23%
  • 23–27%
  • 27–30%
  • 30–34%
  • 34–38%
  • too few assessments
Appearance rate of freedom by country, December 2025 to October 2026
CountryAppearance ratevs average (pp)Rank there
Vietnam
37.5%
+14.13rd of 62
Hong Kong SAR China
36.3%
+12.95th of 62
Italy
34.4%
+11.04th of 62
Poland
34.0%
+10.65th of 62
Netherlands
31.7%
+8.36th of 62
France
31.7%
+8.35th of 62
Romania
31.4%
+8.07th of 62
Malaysia
30.7%
+7.36th of 62
Switzerland
29.7%
+6.37th of 62
Germany
29.4%
+6.07th of 62
Singapore
27.7%
+4.39th of 62
Indonesia
24.0%
+0.610th of 62
Brazil
23.9%
+0.513th of 62
India
23.8%
+0.411th of 62
Canada
23.2%
−0.212th of 62
United States
22.8%
−0.611th of 62
New Zealand
22.6%
−0.813th of 62
Australia
22.4%
−1.015th of 62
Mexico
22.4%
−1.013th of 62
Ireland
21.1%
−2.316th of 62
Saudi Arabia
20.7%
−2.717th of 62
Philippines
20.3%
−3.115th of 62
United Arab Emirates
20.0%
−3.416th of 62
United Kingdom
19.8%
−3.619th of 62
Egypt
19.1%
−4.318th of 62
South Africa
15.7%
−7.725th of 62

Every assessment with a known country, 23.4%

Freedom by Age

Freedom is ranked less often with age, from 29.3% of assessments among participants under 18 to 19.8% among those 65 and over, about 2.1 points per band.

Age is an optional question after the ranking, so this section reads the 75,449 assessments from December 2025 to October 2026 whose participants gave one. A difference between bands mixes what changes as people age with what differs between generations.

Appearance rate of freedom by age band, December 2025 to October 2026
AgeAppearance ratevs average (pp)Rank there
Under 18
29.3%
+5.48th of 62
18–24
25.0%
+1.110th of 62
25–34
23.4%
−0.412th of 62
35–44
20.5%
−3.316th of 62
45–54
18.9%
−4.920th of 62
55–64
19.6%
−4.320th of 62
65 and over
19.8%
−4.118th of 62

Everyone who gave an age, 23.8%

Freedom by Gender

Men rank freedom more often than women, by 4.7 percentage points.

Gender is optional too, asked beside age, so this section reads the 73,168 assessments from December 2025 to October 2026 whose participants gave one. “Prefer not to say” is counted in no group.

Appearance rate of freedom by gender, December 2025 to October 2026
GenderAppearance ratevs average (pp)Rank there
Women
21.8%
−2.015th of 62
Men
26.4%
+2.79th of 62
Non-binary
31.0%
+7.26th of 62

Everyone who gave a gender, 23.8%

About These Figures

Every figure on this page is a share of completed assessments on Personalvalu.es, read from the same aggregates as the Global Values Research. The appearance rate is how often freedom is among a participant's ten most important values. It is not a score, and a difference between groups describes the participants in them without explaining it.

How the aggregates are built, and why some countries and groups are left out, is set out in the methodology. Month-by-month figures for every value are in the monthly archive.

Statistics for every value

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