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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:
9 countries/ areas
Highlight:
1 United States91.3%
2 Sweden84.0%
3 Australia81.2%
4 Germany79.1%
5 United Kingdom72.0%
6 Republic of Korea70.8%
7 Italy62.7%
8 France 59.9%
9 Japan41.8%

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 1 countries.

Source
ISSP 2009

Correlations with major national performance indices
Life satisfaction (10 steps)
No. of data9
Regression equation
Y = 2.002749 X +5.197
Correlation coefficient (r)0.700
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.490

GDP per capita (current US$)
No. of data9
Regression equation
Y = 80801.872450 X -9458.382
Correlation coefficient (r)0.801
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.642

Life expectancy at birth - Both sexes (years)
No. of data9
Regression equation
Y = -9.869917 X +88.983
Correlation coefficient (r)-0.609
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.371

Fertility rate, total (births per woman)
No. of data9
Regression equation
Y = 0.705053 X +0.981
Correlation coefficient (r)0.336
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.113

Suicide, age-standardized (per 100 000 population)
No. of data9
Regression equation
Y = 5.392182 X +7.333
Correlation coefficient (r)0.166
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.028