Overall, US ranked 11th on index.
America is the richest country in the world. But, when it comes to personal freedom, the global ranking of the US falls back to lower position. According to the Legatum Prosperity Index’s findings for 2015, America ranked 15 in personal freedom out of 142 countries in the world.
The prosperity index shows the extent to which a country has advanced beyond economics. The index takes measures such as entrepreneurship and opportunity, governance, education, health, safety and security, personal freedom, and social capital into consideration.
According to the index, Canada is the country having the highest level of personal freedom followed by New Zealand, Norway, Luxembourg and Iceland.
Personal freedom measures a nation’s performance at both guaranteeing individual freedom and encouraging social tolerance. As per the study, 94 percent of Canadian citizens opined that they have the freedom to choose the course of life and about 92 percent said there is tolerance for ethnic minorities and immigrants.
Overall, the US ranked 11th on the index with top performance in health. While America holds first place in health, safety and security is the area where the nation has lost its rank substantially. In all other areas, the US was ranked high.
Norway ranked first on the list followed by Switzerland, Denmark, New Zealand, and Sweden.
“It is also the only Western country to register high levels of state-sponsored political violence. According to Amnesty International the country has the same level of political violence as Saudi Arabia,” said the study.
“Falling levels of safety and security also blight the United States’ performance this year. The US has fallen one place in the overall rankings to 11th but one finding stands out: the US ranks outside the top 30 in the Safety & Security sub-index, down two places to 33rd this year,” said Sian Hansen Executive Director, Legatum Institute.