Personal freedom

Lane Kenworthy, The Good Society
December 2025

In the 1960s, the United States seemed to be moving inexorably in the direction of enhanced individual liberty, with teenagers and social movements challenging a wide array of traditional cultural and social norms. But opponents began to mobilize almost immediately, and in the 1970s and 1980s they were joined by many centrist Americans who felt that cultural and social change had gone too far too fast. By the 1990s and early 2000s, a backlash was in full swing.1 In the mid-2000s, after several decades of resurgent conservatism, progressives again seemed to gain the upper hand. Then Donald Trump was elected president in 2016 and again in 2024, seemingly signaling a return to traditionalism.

Given these developments, some see America as deadlocked in an endless culture war, with neither progressives nor traditionalists able to gain a lasting advantage. “The harsh divisions among Americans in 1968 have largely endured,” writes historian Michael Kazin. “They are rooted in profound disagreements based on culture and creeds that are impervious to compromise…. Each side is convinced it represents a majority — and a moral one at that.”2

But is this image of a cyclical pattern of increasing personal liberty followed by backlash accurate? Or has there actually been a significant long-run rise in personal freedom? There is reason to expect such a rise. As societies get richer, they tend to change in a variety of ways. Among these changes are shifts in what people want and what they prioritize, including personal liberty. Most of us want the freedom to choose what to believe, how to behave, with whom to live, and so on. As material well-being increases, this desire for freedom comes to the fore.3

Has personal freedom in the United States cycled up and down over the past half century? Or has it advanced? How does the US compare to other rich democratic nations?

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PERSONAL FREEDOM HAS INCREASED SIGNIFICANTLY

Only a few indicators are consistent with the notion of a back-and-forth culture war with traditionalists and progressives alternately having the upper hand. On most issues — including religion, racial mixing, gender roles, family, marriage, sexual behavior, sexual preference, abortion, drugs, gambling, and end of life — Americans have come to want and get increased personal freedom.4

Religion

The desire for freedom to choose and practice religion as one sees fit was foundational to the creation of the United States. There has been no noteworthy restriction of this freedom in the past half century. The only partial exception is court rulings that prohibit parents from refusing medical treatment for their children on religious grounds.

What about freedom from religion? For all of their attractions and benefits, religions tend to impose particular beliefs and strictures on people that limit their freedom to think and act as they see fit. Half a century ago nearly all American adults said they believed in God, prayed regularly, and attended religious services fairly frequently. Since then that share has been falling slowly but steadily, suggesting that more Americans feel free to be nonreligious.5

Prior to the 1960s, many public schools began the school day with a religious (Christian) prayer or a reading of religious verses. In 1962 and 1963, the Supreme Court forbid such practices. This increased personal freedom: religious children can still pray in school if they wish to, while nonreligious children aren’t forced to participate in such prayer. As figure 1 shows, this ruling has slowly become more popular over time, though the country is evenly split on the issue.

Figure 1. Public schools shouldn’t be allowed to require prayer or religious readings
Share of adults. 1974ff: Share responding “approve” to the question “The United States Supreme Court has ruled that no state or local government may require the reading of the Lord’s Prayer or Bible verses in public schools. What are your views on this — do you approve or disapprove of the court ruling?” Data source: General Social Survey, sda.berkeley.edu, series prayer. 1963-71: share responding “approve” to the question “Do you approve or disapprove of the Supreme Court’s ruling that local governments cannot compel recitation of the Lord’s Prayer or reading Bible verses in public schools?” Data source: Linda Lyons, “The Gallup Brain: Prayer in Public Schools,” gallup.com, 2002.

Racial mixing

Until a Supreme Court decision in the late 1960s, states could forbid marriage between persons of different races, and some did. In 1990, only 43% of Americans said they were okay with a close relative marrying a black person, as we see in figure 2. Since then this share has increased sharply, reaching 94% as of 2022.

Figure 2. Not opposed to a close relative marrying a black person
Share of adults. Question: “What about having a close relative marry a black person? Would you be very in favor of it happening, somewhat in favor, neither in favor nor opposed to it happening, somewhat opposed, or very opposed to it happening?” The line shows the share responding very in favor, somewhat in favor, or neither in favor nor opposed. Data source: General Social Survey (GSS), sda.berkeley.edu, series marblk.

Family

Family and marriage are core institutions. For traditionalists, they are inextricably linked: a proper family requires marriage. They also are tied to sex: sex is viewed as appropriate only for married adults. However, about three-fourths of Americans believe sex without marriage isn’t wrong. As figure 3 indicates, the share was only 24% at the end of the 1960s but then jumped to around 50% in the early 1970s. By the early 1980s it had risen to about 60%. It remained at that level in the 1980s and 1990s before rising further in the 2000s and 2010s.

Figure 3. Sex without marriage isn’t wrong
Share of adults. Gallup 1969-1973 data source: David J. Harding and Christopher Jencks, “Changing Attitudes Toward Premarital Sex: Cohort, Period, and Aging Effects,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 2003. Gallup 2001ff question: “I’m going to read you a list of issues. Regardless of whether or not you think it should be legal, for each one, please tell me whether you personally believe that in general it is morally acceptable or morally wrong. How about sex between an unmarried man and woman?” Response options: morally acceptable, morally wrong, depends on situation, not a moral issue, no opinion. The line shows the share responding morally acceptable, with depends on situation, not a moral issue, and no opinion responses (usually less than 5%) excluded. Data source: Gallup, “Gallup Poll Social Series: Values and Beliefs,” 2018. GSS question: “If a man and woman have sex relations before marriage, do you think it is always wrong, almost always wrong, wrong only sometimes, or not wrong at all?” The line shows the share responding not wrong at all or wrong only sometimes. Data source: General Social Survey, sda.berkeley.edu, series premarsx.

Traditional norms discourage births that occur outside marriage. Figure 4 shows, however, that the share of babies born to unmarried parents jumped from 5% in 1960 to 40% today. Data on Americans’ views don’t go back very far in time, but as figure 5 reveals, a solid majority now view out-of-wedlock births as not morally wrong, up from fewer than half at the end of the 1990s.

Figure 4. Out-of-wedlock births
Share of children born to unmarried women. Data source: National Center for Health Statistics.

Figure 5. Having a child out of wedlock is morally acceptable
Share of adults. Question: “I’m going to read you a list of issues. Regardless of whether or not you think it should be legal, for each one, please tell me whether you personally believe that in general it is morally acceptable or morally wrong. How about having a baby outside of marriage?” Response options: morally acceptable, morally wrong, depends on situation, not a moral issue, no opinion. The line shows the share responding morally acceptable, with depends on situation, not a moral issue, and no opinion responses (usually less than 5%) excluded. Data source: Gallup, “Marriage,” Gallup Historical Trends.

Divorce, too, is discouraged by traditional family norms. Figure 6 shows that the divorce rate in the United States rose sharply in the 1960s and 1970s. It then reversed course, but the level remains a good bit higher than in 1960. A large majority of Americans believe divorce is morally acceptable and that we shouldn’t make it more difficult to obtain a divorce, as we see in figures 7 and 8. Both shares have increased in recent decades.

Figure 6. Divorce
Divorces per 100 married persons. Data source for 1910-2008: Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, “Marriage and Divorce: Changes and Their Driving Forces,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2007, figure 1, using Census Bureau data. Data source for 2008ff: American Community Survey, data.census.gov, tables B12503 and B12001.

Figure 7. Divorce is morally acceptable
Share of adults. Question: “I’m going to read you a list of issues. Regardless of whether or not you think it should be legal, for each one, please tell me whether you personally believe that in general it is morally acceptable or morally wrong. How about divorce?” Response options: morally acceptable, morally wrong, depends on situation, not a moral issue, no opinion. The line shows the share responding morally acceptable, with depends on situation, not a moral issue, and no opinion responses (usually less than 5%) excluded. Data source: Gallup, “Gallup Historical Trends: Marriage.”

Figure 8. Divorce shouldn’t be more difficult to obtain
Share of adults. Question: “Should divorce in this country be easier or more difficult to obtain than it is now?” Response options: easier, stay same, more difficult. Data source: General Social Survey, sda.berkeley.edu, series divlaw.

Is it okay for parents to physically discipline their children? Christian tradition is widely held to permit spanking and perhaps other types of corporal punishment. (Proverbs 13:24: “Those who withhold the rod hate their children.”6) As we see in figure 9, a minority of Americans disagree with use of spanking, but the share has increased from less than 20% in the mid-1980s to 45% in the mid-2020s.

Figure 9. Disagree spanking a child is sometimes necessary
Share of adults. Question: “Do you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree that it is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good hard spanking?” The line shows the share responding disagree or disagree strongly. Data source: General Social Survey, sda.berkeley.edu, series spanking.

Gender roles

Traditional norms hold that a women’s place is in the home, doing housework and child care. Belief in and adherence to this norm has weakened significantly over the past century. In 1936, a Gallup poll found only 20% of Americans approving of “a married woman earning money in business or industry if she has a husband capable of supporting her,” as we see in figure 10. By the late 1990s the share had risen to nearly 85% and the General Social Survey stopped asking the question. Figure 11 shows that the share of Americans who disagree that “It is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family” or that “A preschool child is likely to suffer if the mother works” has risen from just 30% in the 1970s to about 70% today. In figure 12 we see that the employment rate among prime-working-age women, and among women with children, rose steadily until around 2000, from just one in three to more than two in three. Since 1970, the employment rate among prime-age men has been falling, slowly but steadily. It now is only a little more than 10 percentage points above the rate for prime-age women and mothers.

Figure 10. Approve of a married woman earning money in business or industry if she has a husband capable of supporting her
Other response options: disapprove, don’t know. Don’t know responses are excluded. Data source for 1936 and 1969: Gallup. Data source for 1972ff: General Social Survey (GSS), sda.berkeley.edu, series fework.

Figure 11. Disagree women should focus on home and children
Disagree women should take care of home: share of adults responding disagree or strongly disagree that “It is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family.” Other response options: agree, strongly agree. Data source: General Social Survey (GSS), sda.berkeley.edu, series fefam. Disagree preschool child suffers: share responding disagree or strongly disagree that “A preschool child is likely to suffer if his or her mother works.” Other response options: agree, strongly agree. Data source: GSS, series fepresch.

Figure 12. Women’s and men’s employment
Men age 25-54 and women age 25-54: employed persons aged 25-54 as a share of the population aged 25-54. Data source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, series LNU02300061, LNU02300062. Mothers: employed women with children as a share of all women with children. Data source: D’Vera Cohn, Gretchen Livingston, and Wendy Wang, “After Decades of Decline, A Rise in Stay-at-Home Mothers,” Pew Research Center, 2014, p. 5.

Abortion

Access to legal and safe abortion is critical to a woman’s freedom to pursue the kind of life she wants to lead. About one in four American women have an abortion at some point, according to the most recent estimate.7 The abortion rate in the United States is similar to that in other rich democratic countries, as we see in figure 13.

Figure 13. Abortions
Abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-49. 2011-2015. Data source: Susheela Singh, Lisa Remez, Gilda Sedgh, Lorraine Kwok, and Tsuyoshi Onda, “Abortion Worldwide 2017,” Guttmacher Institute, 2018, figure 2.3.

Public opinion has tended to be divided on whether and under what circumstances abortion should be legal. Since polling on the issue began in the late 1960s, Americans have moved gradually toward greater support for abortion access. As figure 14 indicates, the share of Americans who think abortion should be legal regardless of why the woman wants it increased significantly between the 1960s and the 1990s. It then held constant for a while before rising again in the 2010s and early 2020s.

Figure 14. Abortion should be legal regardless of why the woman wants it
Share of adults. GSS question: “Please tell me whether or not you think it should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legal abortion if the woman wants it for any reason?” Data source: General Social Survey, sda.berkeley.edu, series abany. California Poll question: “Do you approve or disapprove of allowing abortion whenever a mother desires it for any reason?” California only. Data source: Connie de Boer, “The Polls: Abortion,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 1978.

In 1973, the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion. The incidence of abortion rose sharply through the rest of that decade, as we see in figure 15. However, since 1980 it has fallen steadily. The chief causes of this decline are reduced sexual activity among teens and women in their early twenties, increased use of contraceptives, and a shift toward more effective types of contraceptives.8

Figure 15. Abortions
Data sources: Guttmacher Institute, “Abortion in the United States,” 2024; Rachel K. Jones and Kathryn Kooistra, “Abortion Incidence and Access to Services in the United States, 2008,” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2011, table 1; Rachel K. Jones, Elizabeth Witwer, and Jenna Jerman, “Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2017,” Guttmacher Institute, 2019, table 1.

After 1973 some states began passing laws that mandated counseling or waiting periods and reduced the number of abortion providers. There were a large number of these state restrictions enacted in the 1970s, fewer from 1980 to 2010, and a large number again in the 2010s. These laws very likely increased the cost, inconvenience, or agony of getting an abortion for women who live in these states. But they don’t seem to have had an impact on the number of abortions. The over-time pattern of adoption of these restrictions doesn’t correlate with trends in the incidence of abortion — increasing in the 1970s, decreasing steadily since 1980. And abortions didn’t decrease more rapidly in states that became more restrictive than in states that didn’t.9 Also, if the decrease in abortions since 1980 were mainly the result of reduced access to abortion, we would expect to see a rise in the rate of teen births. Instead, the teen birth rate, too, has fallen steadily over the past several decades.10

In 2022 the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Because there is no federal government law regarding access to abortion, state policy is now determinative. About 20 states have laws that ban abortion entirely or impose more restrictions on the procedure than were permitted by Roe v. Wade.11

Thus far, the end of Roe v. Wade, like the enactment of state-level restrictions on abortion in earlier decades, hasn’t reduced the incidence of abortions.12 This owes partly to the fact that women can travel to other states to get an abortion. But the main reason is the growing availability of “medical” (or “medication”) abortions as an alternative to surgical ones. In 2000, mifepristone (RU-486) was approved for prescription use. When taken with misoprostol, this allows a woman to end a pregnancy that is less than 10 weeks along by taking a pill at home. The share of abortions that are medical has risen from zero in 2000 to nearly two-thirds in 2023, as figure 16 shows.13 In some other nations this shift has been even more dramatic: more than 90% of abortions in the Nordic countries and more than 80% in India are now medically-induced.14

Figure 16. Medical abortions
Share of total abortions. Data source: Guttmacher Institute, “Abortion in the United States,” 2024.

The US government’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows mifepristone to be prescribed only by medical providers. The FDA previously required an in-person meeting in a clinic or hospital, but since 2021 it has permitted the pregnant woman to meet with a prescribing physician via video conference. Though the woman still typically must get an ultrasound and lab tests, this reduces the number of needed clinic visits, alleviating hassle and stigma and easing transportation barriers in states where few clinics exist.15 In early 2023 the FDA announced that it will permit retail pharmacies such as CVS and Walgreens to sell mifepristone, though a prescription is still required.16

So has personal freedom when it comes to abortion increased, stayed the same, or decreased? If we focus on the law, the end of Roe v. Wade means a reduction in freedom for women in the 20 or so states that have significant abortion restrictions. On the other hand, public opinion has become notably more supportive of abortion access. And actual access has increased a good bit for most American women thanks to the advent of medical abortion.

Sexual preference

Until relatively recently, many Americans viewed homosexuality as wrong. Public opinion has shifted dramatically since around 1990, as figure 17 shows. A steadily rising share of Americans say they think homosexuality should be accepted by society, homosexuals should have equal job opportunity rights, gay and lesbian sex should be legal, same-sex marriage should be legal, and gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to adopt children.

Figure 17. Views about homosexuality
Equal job opportunity rights question: “As you may know, there has been considerable discussion in the news regarding the rights of homosexual men and women. In general, do you think homosexuals should or should not have equal rights in terms of job opportunities?” Response options: yes should, no should not, depends, no opinion. “Depends” and “no opinion” responses are excluded here. Data source: Gallup, “Gay and Lesbian Rights,” Gallup Historical Trends. Homosexuality should be accepted question: “I’m going to read you some pairs of statements that will help us understand how you feel about a number of things. As I read each pair, tell me whether the first statement or the second statement comes closer to your own views — even if neither is exactly right. ‘Homosexuality should be accepted by society’ or ‘Homosexuality should be discouraged by society’.” Don’t know responses are excluded. Data source: Pew Research Center. Sex legal question: “Do you think gay or lesbian relations between consenting adults should or should not be legal?” Response options: should be legal, should not be legal. Data source: Gallup, “Gay and Lesbian Rights,” Gallup Historical Trends. Marriage legal question: “Do you agree or disagree: homosexual couples should have the right to marry one another?” Response options: strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, strongly disagree. The line shows the share who strongly agree or agree. Data source: General Social Survey, sda.berkeley.edu, series marhomo. Adopt children question: “Do you think gays and lesbians should or should not be allowed to adopt children?” No opinion responses are excluded. Data source: Gallup, “Gay and Lesbian Rights,” Gallup Historical Trends.

Changes in the law also have been liberty-enhancing. Same-sex sexual intercourse was illegal throughout the United States until Connecticut became the first state to decriminalize it in 1962. As figure 18 shows, other states slowly followed suit until a 2003 Supreme Court decision legalized it everywhere.

Figure 18. Same-sex sexual intercourse legal
Number of states. Data source: Wikipedia, “Sodomy Laws in the United States.”

In 1996, the federal government passed the “Defense of Marriage Act” stipulating that marriage must be between a man and a woman. A number of states also passed prohibitions of same-sex marriage in the 1990s and 2000s via referendum or legislation. The tide began to turn in 2004, as we see in figure 19. In that year Massachusetts’ state supreme court ruled the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and legalized same-sex marriage in the state. Courts in Connecticut, Iowa, and some other states issued similar rulings beginning in 2008, and starting in 2012 states such as Maine, Maryland, and Washington legalized same-sex marriage via popular referendums. By 2014, same-sex marriage was legal in 35 states. The Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision in 2015 forbids any state from banning same-sex marriage or refusing to recognize same-sex marriages in other states.

Figure 19. Same-sex marriage legal
Number of states. Data source: Wikipedia, “Same-Sex Marriage in the United States.”

Pornography

Americans have mixed views about pornography. Many see it as degrading to women and a potential spur to violence. Fewer than half of Americans think pornography is morally acceptable, though that share has risen a bit in the past decade, as we see in figure 20. At the same time, well more than half think either it should be legal for everyone or it should be legal for adults. As figure 21 shows, this share has increased by about 10 percentage points over the past few decades.

Figure 20. Pornography is morally acceptable
Share of adults. Question: “I’m going to read you a list of issues. Regardless of whether or not you think it should be legal, for each one, please tell me whether you personally believe that in general it is morally acceptable or morally wrong. How about pornography?” Response options: morally acceptable, morally wrong, depends on situation, not a moral issue, no opinion. The line shows the share responding morally acceptable, with depends on situation, not a moral issue, and no opinion responses (usually less than 5%) excluded. Data source: Gallup, “Moral Issues,” gallup.com.

Figure 21. Pornography should be legal for adults or be legal for everyone
Share of adults choosing response 2 or 3 to the question “Which of these statements comes closest to your feelings about pornography laws: (1) There should be laws against the distribution of pornography whatever the age. (2) There should be laws against the distribution of pornography to persons under 18. (3) There should be no laws forbidding the distribution of pornography.” Data source: General Social Survey, sda.berkeley.edu, series pornlaw.

Since the advent of the internet in the mid-1990s, it has become very difficult to enforce legal prohibitions or even limits on access to pornography.17

Prostitution

Surveys and other data suggest that the share of men who have paid for sex at least once in their life ranges from 10% to 45% in rich democratic nations. According to responses to the General Social Survey, in the US the figure was around 15% in the 1990s and 2000s and 10% in the 2010s.18

Prostitution is illegal everywhere in the United States apart from a few counties in Nevada. Over the past generation most other affluent democratic nations — Australia (parts), Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland — have decriminalized or legalized prostitution, though they regulate it and they typically outlaw pimping and human trafficking.19 Another approach, first enacted in Sweden in 1999 and now also used by Canada, France, and Norway, is to decriminalize the selling of sex but keep the buying of it illegal.20

The argument for decriminalization or legalization stems not only from personal freedom but also the safety, working conditions, and pay of sex workers.21 Amnesty International is the most prominent organization that advocates decriminalization.

We have relatively little public opinion data on legalization in the US. The available information comes from an assortment of surveys that ask the question in different ways. As figure 22 indicates, in most years legalization appears to have had the support of fewer than half of Americans.

Figure 22. Prostitution should be legal
Share of adults. Don’t know responses are excluded. Data sources: Yankelovich, Gallup, Harris, Social Science Research Center, YouGov, and Marist, via Tom Smith, “Public Opinion on Prostitution,” GSS Topical Report 31, National Opinion Research Center, 1998 and ProCon, “Should Prostitution Be Legal? Opinion Polls/Surveys.”

Language

Some Americans who dislike the post-1965 increase in immigration or who worry about its impact on the country’s values and norms have pressed for “English-only” laws, which restrict or forbid access to native-language assistance in schooling and other public services. Since the early 1980s, about 20 states have enacted such laws.22 That could limit non-English speakers’ capabilities. We don’t know exactly how many people this includes, but the share who don’t speak English at home has grown from about 10% in 1980 to 22% in 2016.23

However, some English-only laws are largely symbolic. In any case, the internet, cable television, digital music, and other developments have dramatically increased access to culture, information, and support in languages other than English. With online translation tools, “for the first time in human history, nearly anyone can freely and instantly obtain a rough translation of virtually any document in any language.”24 And as a New York Times report notes, “the United States now has by some counts more than 50 million hispanohablantes, a greater number of Spanish speakers than Spain. In an English-speaking superpower, the Spanish-language TV networks Univision and Telemundo spar for top ratings with ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC.”25

Drugs

Critics of America’s drug prohibition laws have long argued that because marijuana’s effects are no more harmful, and probably less so, than those of alcohol, marijuana use should be decriminalized or legalized. As figure 23 shows, in the 1970s and 1980s only a fifth of Americans said they favored legalization. Since 1990 that share has steadily increased. The law has moved in the same direction, as we can see in figure 24. More than half of the US states have decriminalized marijuana possession and use, some have legalized it for medical purposes, and a small but growing number have legalized it for recreational use.26 An important caveat is that in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s federal authorities and many police departments got much more aggressive about enforcing marijuana prohibitions and sentencing even minor offenders. But with the decline in violent crime since the early 1990s and the spread of medical and recreational marijuana legalization, this aggressive enforcement approach has faded.

Figure 23. Marijuana use should be legal
Estimated share of American adults who think use of marijuana should be legal. GSS question: “Do you think the use of marijuana should be made legal or not?” Response options: legal, illegal. Data source: General Social Survey, sda.berkeley.edu, series grass. Gallup question: “Do you think the use of marijuana should be made legal, or not?” Response options: yes legal, no illegal, no opinion. The line shows the share responding yes legal, with no opinion responses excluded. Data source: Gallup, “Illegal Drugs,” Gallup Historical Trends.

Figure 24. State marijuana laws
Number of states. Some states are in more than one group (e.g., both “legalized: medical” and “legalized: recreational”). Data source: Wikipedia, “Timeline of Cannibis Laws in the United States.”

Gambling

Fifty years ago, only one state had casinos (Nevada). Only two had lotteries (New Hampshire and New York). Now, all but a handful of states have both. Plus there is now gambling on sports. In 2018, the Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law prohibiting sports betting, and since then 38 states have legalized it. Increasingly, Americans can place a bet by pushing a few buttons on their smartphone. Online casino gambling is legal in 10 states, and online sports betting in 30.

A majority of Americans support legal gambling, though there is a sizable minority who see it as wrong. Figure 25 shows that the share of Americans who say gambling is morally acceptable has been around 70% since the early 2000s. In figure 26 we see that the share of Americans who approve of legal sports betting is a little above 50%.

Figure 25. Gambling is morally acceptable
Share of adults. Question: “I’m going to read you a list of issues. Regardless of whether or not you think it should be legal, for each one, please tell me whether you personally believe that in general it is morally acceptable or morally wrong. How about gambling?” Response options: morally acceptable, morally wrong, depends on situation, not a moral issue, no opinion. The line shows the share responding morally acceptable, with depends on situation, not a moral issue, and no opinion responses (usually less than 5%) excluded. Data source: Gallup, “Moral Issues,” gallup.com.

Figure 26. Gambling on sports should be legal
Share of adults. Question: “Do you approve or disapprove of making it legal to do each of the following types of gambling? Betting on professional sports events.” The line shows the share responding approve, with no opinion responses excluded. Data source: “Washington Post-UMass-Lowell Sports Poll,” Washington Post, 2017.

The expansion of legal gambling has increased personal freedom, but is it a good thing for Americans? Early findings aren’t encouraging. About one in three Americans say they do some betting on sports. One study concludes that legalizing online sports gambling increases the risk of household bankruptcy by about 25%, and another that it increases intimate-partner violence by 10%.27

Guns

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” says the US Constitution’s second amendment (given the need, its authors presumed, for a militia). The US has fewer restrictions on gun ownership than other rich democracies, and the number of guns per person is significantly greater here than abroad.28 In 1994, the federal government passed a crime law that included background checks for handgun purchases and a ban on some types of assault weapons, but it expired after ten years and hasn’t been reinstated. About 40% of American homes have a gun in them, a modest decline compared to half a century ago, as we see in figure 27. On the other hand, the number of guns per person seems to have increased significantly.

Figure 27. Guns
Homes with a gun data sources: Gallup (dashed line), “Guns,” Gallup Historical Trends; General Social Survey (solid line), sda.berkeley.edu, series owngun. Guns per 100 persons data sources: 1968 and 2009 from William J. Krouse, “Gun Control Legislation,” Congressional Research Service, 2012, pp. 8-9; 2017 from Small Arms Survey.

There is little chance the federal government will adopt a policy of prohibition. As figure 28 indicates, fewer than half of Americans favor a ban on assault weapons and only a quarter support a ban on handguns. Even if there were more public support, the National Rifle Association (NRA) could probably ensure blockage of legislation in the House or Senate or via a presidential veto. And in the unlikely event that a ban became law, the courts might well rule it unconstitutional.

Even so, governments might move to more tightly restrict gun purchases. As figure 29 shows, this tends to have the support of a healthy majority of Americans. Nearly 90%, for instance, support requiring a universal background check before a person is allowed to buy a gun, and 75% support requiring a police permit.

Figure 28. Favor banning guns
Share of adults. Handguns question: “Do you think there should or should not be a law that would ban the possession of handguns, except by the police and other authorized persons?” Assault rifles question: “Do you think there should or should not be a ban on the manufacture, possession, and sale of semiautomatic guns, known as assault rifles?” Data source: Gallup, “Guns,” Gallup Historical Trends.

Figure 29. Favor stricter requirements for gun purchases
Share of adults. More strict question: “In general, do you feel that the laws covering the sale of firearms should be made more strict, less strict, or kept as they are now?” Data source: Gallup, “Guns,” Gallup Historical Trends. Police permit question: “Would you favor or oppose a law which would require a person to obtain a police permit before he or she could buy a gun?” Data source: General Social Survey, sda.berkeley.edu, series gunlaw. Background check question: “Would you favor or oppose a law which would require universal background checks for all gun purchases in the US using a centralized database across all 50 states?” Data source: Gallup, “Guns,” Gallup Historical Trends.

End of life

Should freedom include the right to end your own life? As figure 30 shows, the share of Americans in favor increased from 40% in 1947 and 1950, when this question was first asked, to 70% in the mid-to-late 1980s. It has held steady since then.

Figure 30. Doctor-assisted end of life should be allowed
Share of adults. Question: “When a person has a disease that cannot be cured, do you think doctors should be allowed by law to end the patient’s life by some painless means if the patient and his or her family request it?” Response options: yes, no. Data source for 1947-73: Gallup, “Doctor assisted suicide.” Data source for 1977ff: General Social Survey, sda.berkeley.edu, series letdie1.

In 1997, Oregon became the first state to permit doctor-assisted end of life, and some other states have followed suit. A small but growing share of Americans now have access to this option, as we see in figure 31.

Figure 31. Doctor-assisted end of life legalization
Share of the population living in a state in which doctor-assisted end of life is legal. Data source: Wikipedia, “Assisted Suicide.”

AN EXCEPTION TO THE TREND: INCARCERATION

Crime, including violent crime, increased sharply in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.29 In response, the federal government and many state and local governments began locking up more criminals and keeping them in jail or prison longer. The “war on drugs” began in the 1970s under the Nixon administration. Mandatory minimum sentences, “three strikes” laws, and “truth in sentencing” laws, which forced judges to assign long prison terms irrespective of case circumstances, were added in the 1980s and 1990s. The likelihood of being arrested for committing a crime didn’t change much, but the likelihood of being convicted if arrested, the likelihood of being sentenced to prison or jail given a conviction, and the typical length of sentences all increased significantly.30 As a result, the share of Americans behind bars rose steadily and sharply from the early 1970s to 2007, as figure 32 shows.

Figure 32. Incarceration
Per 100,000 population. Incarceration in federal prison, state prison, or local jail. Data source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Total Correctional Population.”

The incarceration boom disproportionately affected young African American and Latino men from low-income households. By the 2000s, more than half of black male high school dropouts in their thirties had spent time in jail or prison.31

In the mid-2000s, state governments began to move in the other direction, prompted by the decline in violent crime that started in the mid-1990s, by a rethinking of the utility of imprisoning nonviolent drug offenders, and by the high cost of large-scale incarceration. The incarceration rate has begun to drop, but it remains well above its level of half a century ago.

Did we need to reduce the personal freedom of so many young Americans in order to combat the rise in violent crime? The case for the incarceration-heavy approach has several empirical problems.32 There was a lag of two decades between the rise in incarceration beginning in the early 1970s and the decline in crime beginning in the mid-1990s. That’s longer than we might expect if incarceration has a large impact, though this may owe partly to the fact that much of the rise in incarceration was for drug crimes, rather than for violent crimes. Other rich countries didn’t follow the US lead in ramping up incarceration in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, yet they too experienced a drop in violent crime beginning in the mid-1990s. And in the US, states that have reduced incarceration since 2000 have enjoyed the same continued decline in violent crime as states that have maintained or increased incarceration. According to the most thorough assessment to date, a 2014 report prepared for the National Academy of Sciences, “On balance, panel data studies support the conclusion that the growth in incarceration rates reduced crime, but the magnitude of the crime reduction remains highly uncertain and the evidence suggests it was unlikely to have been large.”33

IS SPEECH ANOTHER EXCEPTION?

In one respect, social media has dramatically increased freedom of speech: it gives every individual a means to potentially be heard by a large number of people. Previously, in order to reach a large audience one had to be already famous or the holder of an important position. However, social media also can impede freedom of speech. Individuals or groups who object to what a person is saying can use social media to attack them in a way and at a volume that has the potential to stifle that person’s willingness to continue speaking publicly.

Over the past decade, the rise of social media has intersected with a societal rethinking about the appropriateness of certain controversial topics and words. In addition, there seems to have been an increase in efforts by college students to block controversial speakers from speaking on their campus or to shout them down if they do come. “Political correctness,” “wokeness,” and “cancel culture” have caused a rise in self-censoring.34 Self-censoring occurs not only on social media and college campuses but at work, with friends, and even at home.

In a 2022 poll, 55% of Americans said they had “held their tongue over the past year because they were concerned about retaliation or harsh criticism.”35 Consistent in timing with the rise of social media, wokeness, and cancel culture, figure 33 suggests there was a significant increase in self-censoring in the 2010s.

Figure 33. Feel less free to speak my mind
Share of adults responding “don’t” to the question “Do you or don’t you feel as free to speak your mind as you used to?” These data come from different surveys and so may not be perfectly comparable over time. Data source: James L. Gibson and Joseph L. Sutherland, “Keeping Your Mouth Shut: Spiraling Self-Censorship in the United States,” Political Science Quarterly, 2023, figure 1.

Then again, we’ve been through periods such as this before, from the Puritan era in the 1700s to the McCarthy years in the early 1950s to the political correctness period of the late 1980s and early 1990s. All of them have eventually faded away. Some types of speech become permanently out of bounds — discussion of violence against particular groups, offensive stereotypes or slurs, and so on. Others come to be considered edgy but not beyond the pale. And some, we decide, aren’t really problematic at all. And we move on.

There are signs that wokeness and cancel culture are receding: “Discussion and espousal of woke views peaked in America in the early 2020s and have declined markedly since. The Economist [magazine] has attempted to quantify the prominence of woke ideas in four domains: public opinion, the media, higher education, and business. Almost everywhere we looked a similar trend emerged: wokeness grew sharply in 2015, as Donald Trump appeared on the political scene, continued to spread during the subsequent efflorescence of #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, peaked in 2021-22, and has been declining ever since. The only exception is corporate wokeness, which took off only after Mr Floyd’s murder, but has also retreated in the past year or two.”36

THE US IN CROSS-NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

America’s Declaration of Independence says liberty is an inalienable right, and its national anthem proclaims the country to be “the land of the free.” Are Americans freer than their counterparts in other affluent longstanding-democratic nations?

A helpful comparative measure is the personal freedom portion of the Human Freedom Index. It’s a composite of 30 scores for seven components of personal liberty, available beginning in 2000. It is shown in figure 34. The United States has a fairly high score, but it has tended to be near the bottom among the rich democracies. Areas in which the US lags behind include bias in the criminal and civil justice systems and harassment of minority religions.

Figure 34. Personal freedom
Average score for rule of law, safety and security, freedom of movement, religious freedom, freedom of association, freedom of expression and information, and freedom of identity and relationships. Scale is 0 to 10. The vertical axis doesn’t begin at zero. (I begin the vertical axis at 6 because that is the lowest score any of these countries received on any of the components of the index.) Data source: Ian Vásquez, Matthew D. Mitchell, Ryan Murphy, & Guillermina Sutter Schneider, The Human Freedom Index 2024, Cato Institute and Fraser Institute, 2024. Thick line: United States. “Asl” is Australia; “Aus” is Austria.

SUMMARY

Culture wars continue to rage in the United States, but since the 1960s the terrain on which they are fought has shifted steadily in the direction of increased personal freedom. There is plenty of room for further progress, as suggested by, among other things, America’s personal liberty deficit relative to other rich democratic nations.

APPENDIX

The appendix has additional data.

  1. Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, Crown, 1991; David Gates, “White Male Paranoia,” Newsweek, 1993; Rick Perlstein, Nixonland, Scribner, 2008. ↩︎
  2. Michael Kazin, “America’s Never-Ending Culture War,” New York Times, 2018. ↩︎
  3. Ronald Inglehart, “Changing Values among Western Publics from 1970 to 2006,” West European Politics, 2008; Christian Welzel, Freedom Rising: Human Empowerment and the Quest for Emancipation, Cambridge University Press, 2013; Ronald Inglehart, Cultural Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 2018. ↩︎
  4. See also Claude S. Fischer and Michael Hout, Century of Difference, Russell Sage Foundation, 2006; Barum Park, “How Are We Apart? Continuity and Change in the Structure of Ideological Disagreement in the American Public, 1980–2012,” Social Forces, 2018; Delia Baldassarri and Barum Park, “Was There a Culture War? Partisan Polarization and Secular Trends in U.S. Public Opinion,” Journal of Politics, 2019; Michael Hout, “America’s Liberal Social Climate and Trends: Change in 283 General Social Survey Variables Between and Within Birth Cohorts, 1972-2018,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 2021. ↩︎
  5. Lane Kenworthy, “Religion,” The Good Society. ↩︎
  6. Common English Bible. ↩︎
  7. Rachel K. Jones and Jenna Jerma, “Population Group Abortion Rates and Lifetime Incidence of Abortion: United States, 2008-2014,” American Journal of Public Health, 2017. ↩︎
  8. Rachel K. Jones and Jenna Jerman, “Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2011,” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2014; Rachel K. Jones and Jenna Jerman, “Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2014,” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2017. ↩︎
  9. Jones and Jerman, “Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2014.” ↩︎
  10. Lane Kenworthy, “Families,” The Good Society. ↩︎
  11. New York Times, “Tracking Where Abortion Is Now Banned.” ↩︎
  12. Claire Cain Miller and Margot Sanger-Katz, “Abortions Have Increased, Even for Women in States with Rigid Bans, Study Says,” New York Times, 2024. ↩︎
  13. Centers for Disease Control, “Abortion Surveillance — United States,” various issues; Rachel K. Jones and Amy Friedrich-Karnik, “Medication Abortion Accounted for 63% of All US Abortions in 2023,” Guttmacher Institute, 2024. See also Farhad Manjoo, “Abortion Pills Should Be Everywhere,” New York Times, 2019. ↩︎
  14. The Economist, “Abortions Are Becoming Safer and Easier to Obtain — Even Where They Are Illegal,” 2020. ↩︎
  15. Pam Belluck, “Abortion by Telemedicine: A Growing Option as Access to Clinics Wanes,” New York Times, 2020; Claire Cain Miller and Margot Sanger-Katz, “Medication Abortions Are Increasing: What They Are and Where Women Get Them,” New York Times, 2022. ↩︎
  16. Pam Belluck, “Abortion Pills Can Now Be Offered at Retail Pharmacies, FDA Says,” New York Times, 2023. ↩︎
  17. Tim Alberta, “How the GOP Gave Up on Porn,” Politico, 2018. ↩︎
  18. ProCon, “Percentage of Men (by Country) Who Paid for Sex at Least Once”; General Social Survey (GSS), sda.berkeley.edu, series evpaidsx. The GSS question is “Thinking about the time since your 18th birthday, have you ever had sex with a person you paid or who paid you for sex?” ↩︎
  19. ProCon, “Countries and Their Prostitution Policies”; Wikipedia, “Prostitution.” ↩︎
  20. Simon Hedlin and Birgitta Ohlsson, “How We Should Handle Prostitution,” Los Angeles Times, 2015; Rachel Moran, “Buying Sex Should Not Be Legal,” New York Times, 2015; Margaret Wente, “Sweden’s Prostitution Solution,” Globe and Mail, 2015. ↩︎
  21. Reihan Salam, “It’s Time for Legalized Prostitution,” Slate, 2014; Emily Bazelon, “Should Prostitution Be a Crime?,” New York Times, 2016. ↩︎
  22. Wikipedia, “English-Only Movement.” ↩︎
  23. Christopher Ingraham, “Millions of U.S. Citizens Don’t Speak English to One Another. That’s Not a Problem,” Washington Post: Wonkblog, 2018. ↩︎
  24. Martin Ford, Rise of the Robots, Basic Books, 2015. ↩︎
  25. See, for example, Simon Rivera, “Spanish Thrives in the U.S. Despite an English-Only Drive,” New York Times, 2018. ↩︎
  26. Lane Kenworthy, “Marijuana,” The Good Society. ↩︎
  27. Charles Fain Lehman, “Legalizing Sports Gambling Was a Huge Mistake,” The Atlantic, 2024. ↩︎
  28. Lane Kenworthy, “Guns,” The Good Society. ↩︎
  29. Lane Kenworthy, “Safety,” The Good Society. ↩︎
  30. Jeremy Travis, Bruce Western, and Steve Redburn, eds., The Growth of Incarceration in the United States, National Academies Press, 2014, ch. 2. ↩︎
  31. Bruce Western, Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison, Russell Sage Foundation, 2018. ↩︎
  32. Kenworthy, “Safety,” The Good Society. ↩︎
  33. Travis, Western, and Redburn, eds., The Growth of Incarceration in the United States, p. 155. ↩︎
  34. Anne Appelbaum, “The New Puritans,” The Atlantic, 2021; New York Times Editorial Board, “America Has a Free Speech Problem,” New York Times, 2022; James L. Gibson and Joseph L. Sutherland, “Keeping Your Mouth Shut: Spiraling Self-Censorship in the United States,” Political Science Quarterly, 2023. ↩︎
  35. New York Times Editorial Board, “America Has a Free Speech Problem.” ↩︎
  36. The Economist, “America Is Becoming Less ‘Woke’,” 2024. See also Musa al-Gharbi, “The ‘Great Awokening’ Is Winding Down,” 2023; David French, “Promising Signs for Free Speech on Campus,” New York Times, 2023; Stephen L. Carter, “College Is All About Curiosity. And That Requires Free Speech,” New York Times, 2024. ↩︎