Economic Freedom and LGBT Rights
Economic freedom improves the level of safety and rights for the LGBT community. This conclusion comes from taking data from two different sites. The first, from Asher & Lyric is “A study of the world’s most dangerous countries for LGBTQ+ travel reveals the good, the average and the utterly grotesque.” The second is the Index of Economic Freedom for the year 2016 (the last available) from the Cato Institute.
The first rates 150 top traveled destinations and the second most nations of the world. Between them they have 132 nations listed in common. The top traveled destinations sites actually biases the sample a bit because total economic basket cases, which tend to be lowly rated on economic freedom, also tend not to attract a lot of tourism. Their survey of most traveled destinations already removes some of the worst nations when it comes to economic freedom, which biases up the average for economic freedom in the countries they do survey. In spite of this problem there is a strong correlation between economic freedom and higher levels of rights and safety for LGBT individuals.
The LGBT index rated 44 nations receiving an F grade in regards to rights and safety of LGBT individuals, 41 of the are also rated in economic freedom. The worst nations in terms of LGBT safety and rights scored an average of 6.54 in terms of economic freedom. The higher the economic score the higher their economic freedom according to the index.
Those grade D+, D or D- totaled 34 countries. Their average economic freedom score increased to 6.95.
There were 28 nations with a safety/rights grade of C+, C and C-. Their average economic freedom score was 7.09
Only 17 nations had a safety/rights grade of B-, B or B+. Their average economic freedom score was 7.38.
And only 12 nations had safety/rights grades from A- to A and their average economic freedom score was 7.77.
We can also look at this from the aspect of economic freedom first. If we take the bottom quartile of 33 nations from the list, in terms of economic freedom, we find their average grade on the safety/rights scale was a sold F or failure.
The next quartile of 33 nations in terms of low economic freedom averaged a safety/rights grade of just D.
The third quartile of 33 nations in terms of economic freedom averaged a safety/rights grade of C-. And our top quartile of 33 nations averaged a grade of C+.
The worst 10 nations in terms of safety/rights grades had an average economic freedom rating of just 6.33, while the top 10 scored 7.68.
No matter which way you look at the greater the level of economic freedom the better off the LGBT community becomes. Greater economic freedom correlates with greater social freedom in general.
The Williams Institute of the U.C.L.A School of Law noted, “Several theoretical frameworks argue that inclusion of LGBT people is linked to a stronger economy. …The post-materialist demand for human rights theory suggests that greater economic development might make countries more likely to respect the rights of LGBT people, as LGBT people can freely organize and push for legal changes and as public opinion shifts to support greater individual autonomy and minority rights.”
