Tweet
Question: How important is hard work for getting ahead in life?
Choices: "Essential" "Very important" "Fairly important" "Not very important" "Not important at all"
Data: % of "Essential" "Very important"
Period:
Area:
41 countries/ areas
Highlight:
1 United States95.5%
2 Taiwan93.5%
3 Iceland92.9%
4 Philippines91.9%
5 New Zealand89.7%
6 Portugal88.1%
7 Cyprus88.0%
8 Australia86.8%
9 South Africa86.6%
10 Republic of Korea86.3%
11 China85.2%
12 Poland85.0%
13 United Kingdom84.1%
14 Bulgaria83.9%
15 Norway80.8%
16 Turkiye80.2%
17 Croatia80.1%
18 Latvia76.3%
19 Czech Republic76.1%
19 Slovakia76.1%
21 Sweden75.7%
22 Hungary71.6%
22 Slovenia71.6%
24 Germany71.1%
24 Israel71.1%
26 Estonia70.3%
27 Chile70.2%
28 Spain68.4%
29 Switzerland68.2%
30 Venezuela67.7%
31 Russian Federation67.4%
32 Argentina66.5%
33 Lithuania66.0%
34 Belgium65.0%
34 Japan 65.0%
36 Austria64.7%
37 Italy64.0%
38 Finland62.4%
39 Ukraine58.3%
40 France55.2%
41 Denmark44.0%

Note
Can't choose/ No answer are excluded. Belgium: unweighted sum of Flanders and Wallony. Germany: unweighted sum of West and East Germany. United Kingdom: excluding Northern Ireland.

No data for 197 countries.

Source
ISSP 2009

Correlations with major national performance indices
Life satisfaction (10 steps)
No. of data41
Regression equation
Y = -0.685691 X +6.967
Correlation coefficient (r)-0.119
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.014

GDP per capita (current US$)
No. of data41
Regression equation
Y = -3021.481039 X +37804.002
Correlation coefficient (r)-0.014
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.000

Life expectancy at birth - Both sexes (years)
No. of data40
Regression equation
Y = -5.220001 X +82.142
Correlation coefficient (r)-0.115
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.013

Fertility rate, total (births per woman)
No. of data40
Regression equation
Y = 0.332583 X +1.382
Correlation coefficient (r)0.095
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.009

Suicide, age-standardized (per 100 000 population)
No. of data40
Regression equation
Y = -2.456692 X +12.347
Correlation coefficient (r)-0.054
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.003