Personal ValuesValues Research & Tools

Personal value statistics: Freedom

Freedom appeared in the ranked ten of 28.0% of the 2,099,004 assessments completed since 2020, which makes it the 9th most frequently ranked of the 62 core values.

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.
6.7%
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 (30.0%) and just above Security (24.8%).

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 23.9% and ranked 11th, a fall of 5.8 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 far304,53323.9%11th▼22.4%7.0%5.6

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 September 2026.

Freedom by Country

Of the 25 countries with enough assessments to publish, participants in Hong Kong SAR China rank freedom most often, at 36.3%, and those in South Africa least often, at 15.6%.

Country is recorded for the assessments from December 2025 to September 2026, so this section reads those 272,982 assessments and compares each country with all of them.

Where freedom is ranked most often

23.2% of participants rank freedom in their top ten, from 36.3% in Hong Kong SAR China to 15.6% in South Africa. Tap or hover a country to see its top values.

  • 15–19%
  • 19–22%
  • 22–26%
  • 26–30%
  • 30–33%
  • 33–37%
  • too few assessments
Appearance rate of freedom by country, December 2025 to September 2026
CountryAppearance ratevs average (pp)Rank there
Hong Kong SAR China
36.3%
+13.15th of 62
Italy
34.4%
+11.24th of 62
Poland
33.3%
+10.15th of 62
Netherlands
31.8%
+8.65th of 62
Romania
31.4%
+8.27th of 62
France
31.2%
+8.06th of 62
Malaysia
31.0%
+7.86th of 62
Germany
29.5%
+6.27th of 62
Switzerland
28.7%
+5.48th of 62
Singapore
26.2%
+3.08th of 62
Brazil
23.9%
+0.613th of 62
India
23.7%
+0.511th of 62
Indonesia
23.3%
+0.110th of 62
Canada
23.0%
−0.213th of 62
United States
22.7%
−0.611th of 62
New Zealand
22.2%
−1.014th of 62
Australia
22.1%
−1.216th of 62
Ireland
21.8%
−1.417th of 62
Mexico
20.6%
−2.615th of 62
Philippines
20.2%
−3.016th of 62
United Kingdom
19.8%
−3.419th of 62
Saudi Arabia
19.4%
−3.819th of 62
Egypt
19.0%
−4.218th of 62
United Arab Emirates
18.9%
−4.317th of 62
South Africa
15.6%
−7.626th of 62

Every assessment with a known country, 23.2%

Freedom by Age

Freedom is ranked less often with age, from 29.1% 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 66,624 assessments from December 2025 to September 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 September 2026
AgeAppearance ratevs average (pp)Rank there
Under 18
29.1%
+5.49th of 62
18–24
24.9%
+1.210th of 62
25–34
23.2%
−0.511th of 62
35–44
20.2%
−3.516th of 62
45–54
18.9%
−4.820th of 62
55–64
20.2%
−3.520th of 62
65 and over
19.8%
−3.919th of 62

Everyone who gave an age, 23.7%

Freedom by Gender

Men rank freedom more often than women, by 4.8 percentage points.

Gender is optional too, asked beside age, so this section reads the 64,656 assessments from December 2025 to September 2026 whose participants gave one. “Prefer not to say” is counted in no group.

Appearance rate of freedom by gender, December 2025 to September 2026
GenderAppearance ratevs average (pp)Rank there
Women
21.6%
−2.116th of 62
Men
26.4%
+2.89th of 62
Non-binary
30.2%
+6.56th of 62

Everyone who gave a gender, 23.6%

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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