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Question: How important is having ambition 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 Poland92.3%
2 United States91.3%
3 Iceland89.7%
4 Bulgaria88.0%
5 Norway87.4%
6 Taiwan84.5%
7 South Africa84.4%
8 Cyprus84.3%
9 Philippines84.1%
10 Sweden84.0%
11 Israel83.1%
12 New Zealand82.9%
13 Croatia82.2%
14 Australia81.2%
15 Germany79.1%
16 China78.1%
17 Hungary76.5%
18 Slovakia74.9%
19 Slovenia73.2%
20 Austria72.4%
21 United Kingdom72.0%
22 Portugal71.0%
23 Republic of Korea70.8%
24 Czech Republic67.7%
25 Denmark64.8%
26 Italy62.7%
27 Switzerland61.2%
28 France59.9%
29 Argentina59.4%
30 Turkiye59.2%
31 Lithuania58.2%
32 Chile57.9%
33 Spain57.6%
34 Belgium57.2%
35 Russian Federation56.8%
36 Latvia56.5%
37 Finland49.3%
38 Ukraine48.7%
39 Estonia46.6%
40 Japan 41.8%
41 Venezuela40.6%

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 = 0.948663 X +5.785
Correlation coefficient (r)0.205
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.042

GDP per capita (current US$)
No. of data41
Regression equation
Y = 44113.838810 X +4608.386
Correlation coefficient (r)0.261
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.068

Life expectancy at birth - Both sexes (years)
No. of data40
Regression equation
Y = 1.127035 X +77.444
Correlation coefficient (r)0.031
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.001

Fertility rate, total (births per woman)
No. of data40
Regression equation
Y = 0.555930 X +1.244
Correlation coefficient (r)0.200
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.040

Suicide, age-standardized (per 100 000 population)
No. of data40
Regression equation
Y = -3.165327 X +12.713
Correlation coefficient (r)-0.087
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.008