Towards a Worldwide Index of Human Freedom

62 • Towards a Worldwide Index of Human Freedom
Relationship freedoms
Here we measure what we broadly categorize as freedoms to have relationships
with others and of the kind not covered above. Nine indicators
make up this category. The first measure refers to the standard understanding
of freedom of association and assembly, including the freedom
to form political parties, trade unions, and to organize public demonstrations.
Parental authority refers to the extent to which women have equal
rights based in law and custom regarding “legal guardianship of a child
during a marriage and custody rights over a child after divorce.”
The next two indicators on freedom of religion are drawn from the Pew
Forum on Religion and Public Life. The first measures government restrictions
on religion (practices and beliefs) and the second measures nonofficial
or social hostility “that effectively hinder the religious activities of
the targeted individuals or groups.” This second measure probably does
reduce the liberty of certain people to practice religion, but its inclusion
in the index is debatable depending on what is meant by a “hostile act”
according to Pew; some acts may deter people from behaving in a certain
way but may be consistent with freedom of expression, for example. Note
also that we’ve slightly modified the Pew index, excluding two categories
that did not measure actual freedoms or would have been redundant in
our own index.8
The last four indicators measure the freedom of homosexuals to establish
relationships. The male-to-male relationship indicator gauges the
extent to which sexual relationships between men are legal; the femaleto-female
indicator gauges the same for relationships between women.
The age of consent indicator measures whether such laws are equal for
heterosexual and homosexual couples. Lastly, we measure the extent to
which it is legal for homosexual couples to adopt children.
Results and preliminary findings
Table 2 gives the ratings of the personal freedom index for 2008. The table
includes the economic freedom ratings and the ratings and rankings of
the overall freedom index. For the ratings for all countries of all categories
and measures that make up the personal freedom index, see appendix C.
The resulting personal freedom index and overall freedom index looks
about right in that most countries fall into the spectrum of freedom that
would be generally expected. The top three jurisdictions in the freedom
8 The two Pew categories our index excludes are: a) government restrictions on religion
question #1: “Does the constitution, or law that functions in the place of a constitution
(basic law), specifically provide for ‘freedom of religion’ or include language used in
Article 18 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights?” and b) social
hostility question #4: “Were religion-related terrorist groups active in the country?”
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