Racial Tolerance Around the World

The map above is based on information from the World Values Survey, which does ongoing research. The data from a single question was used to gauge racist attitudes around the world. Two Swedish economists used the data for a study to determine if there was any correlation between economic freedom and racism in different countries.

Among the dozens of questions that World Values asks, the Swedish economists found one that, they believe, could be a pretty good indicator of tolerance for other races. The survey asked respondents in more than 80 different countries to identify kinds of people they would not want as neighbors. Some respondents, picking from a list, chose “people of a different race.” The more frequently that people in a given country say they don’t want neighbors from other races, the economists reasoned, the less racially tolerant you could call that society. (The study concluded that economic freedom had no correlation with racial tolerance, but it does appear to correlate with tolerance toward homosexuals.)

Max Fisher used the raw data from the study to create the map. It has been pointed out that the survey results may be affected by cultural differences in answering survey questions honestly. At the Washington Post, you can enlarge the map and read more about the project. More