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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 France59.9%
9 Japan 41.8%

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 = 2.427402 X +5.003
Correlation coefficient (r)0.728
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.530

GDP per capita (current US$)
No. of data9
Regression equation
Y = 64427.881473 X +3456.842
Correlation coefficient (r)0.775
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.601

Life expectancy at birth - Both sexes (years)
No. of data9
Regression equation
Y = -9.390538 X +88.618
Correlation coefficient (r)-0.674
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.454

Fertility rate, total (births per woman)
No. of data9
Regression equation
Y = 0.526945 X +1.093
Correlation coefficient (r)0.270
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.073

Suicide - all ages (per 100,000 population)
No. of data9
Regression equation
Y = 2.099696 X +12.711
Correlation coefficient (r)0.050
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.003