A thought experiment concerning economic freedom and acceptance of gay people. Pew has come out with a limited survey of nations and how accepting they are regarding gay people. It included 38 countries. I then compared the level of acceptance in those countries to degree of economic freedom using the Index of Economic Freedom published by the Cato Institute. There were 36 nations in common on the two surveys. I took these nations and divided them into three equal categories based on economic freedom. For what it may be worth, here is what I found. The least economically free nations in both surveys are: Venezuela, Argentina, Senegal, Nigeria, Pakistan, China, Brazil, Bolivia, Eqypt, Russia, Mexico and South Africa. Their average economic score was 6.14 out of 10. As for acceptance of gay people they average a rate of 30.6% acceptance> As for the second tier group, those falling in the middle, the nations were: Italy, Greece, Tunisia, Kenya, Indonesia, Turkey, Malaysia, Philippines, Czech Republic, El Salvador, Israel, and Uganda. Their average economic score was 6.98 and their acceptance rate of gay people averaged just 32.4%. The top group, those with the most economic freedom, were: Poland, France, South Korea, Spain, Germany, Jordan, Japan, United States, Britain, Chile, Canada, and Australia. Their average economic score was 8.23 and their acceptance rate was 63.1%. You could also divide the nations in three categories according to acceptance of gay people. The lowest group would have acceptance rates of 33% or below. Their average economic freedom score was 6.72. The middle group has acceptance rates of 34% to 65%. They have an average economic freedom score of 6.75. The group with the highest acceptance rate, between 66% and 100%, has an economic freedom score of 7.92. My intuition tells me there is a small, but positive, effect between economic freedom and acceptance of gay people. I suspect the bulk of the impact on acceptance levels comes from other cultural values—but from values that imply freedom in general. Nations with more than 50% acceptance of gay people are mostly in Europe or places like Australia. The exceptions are nations that were strongly influenced by the West: Venezuela, once a classical liberal country, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Philippines and Argentina. Of those with less than 50% acceptance rates all are Muslim or African nations with the acceptance of Russia and China, both very authoritarian states. My best guess is that these cultural values play the dominant role in establishing both economic freedom and acceptance of gay people. But, it also seems that economic freedom also reinforces those values and promotes gay acceptance as well, though to the same extent.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 20:54:09 +0000