2025 Study: New Zealand, Hawaii continue to lead on inclusion
BERKELEY, CA: New Zealand has come out on top of a list of the most inclusive countries for the fourth consecutive year in 2025, according to the latest findings of an annual study published Wednesday by a UC Berkeley research center.
Each year the Othering & Belonging Institute's Inclusiveness Index ranks countries and US states by their levels of inclusion based on a handful of indicators, including how well they respect the rights of different groups based on their race, gender, dis/ability, religion, and the general population. And each year, the same countries and states perform more or less similarly, with occasional leaps showing progress or regress.
The indicators are assessed through measures that include outgroup violence; political representation; income inequality; anti-discrimination laws; rates of incarceration; immigration and asylum policies, and environmental impact. For 2025, the Index replaced four existing measures used in previous surveys to rank countries with new ones that may be more representative of inclusion.
For instance, past surveys measured the gender indicator, in part, by the percentage of women holding office in the lower house of parliament. For 2025, that measure was replaced by scores showing the level of women's civil society and political participation.
Additionally, one new measure related to civil liberties was introduced to evaluate the score for the “Everyone” category.
Despite the changes and additional measures, the results for 2025 remain similar to past surveys. The United States, which consistently ranks midpack in the study, came in 75th place this year out of 152 countries, sandwiched between Panama (74th place), and Madagascar (76th place).
Among the most inclusive countries, Portugal placed 2nd in the latest report for the 2nd year in a row, while The Netherlands took 3rd place. The Netherlands once dominated the top spot of the Index since OBI began publishing it in 2016 until it was knocked off by Sweden in 2021.
On the other end of the spectrum, the least inclusive countries are Afghanistan, Iran and Yemen, in that order.
The US state rankings are also similar to previous years, with Hawaii again coming in first place for 2025, followed by New Hampshire and Delaware in 2nd and 3rd place, respectively. New Hampshire hasn't ranked on the podium since the first study came out in 2016 where it ranked 3rd place. And this is the first time Delaware finishes among the top three. Its previous best record was 6th place, in 2023.
New Jersey placed last in this year's survey, its worst showing since the rankings began, followed by Lousianna (which usually places last), and Massachusetts.
Five new indicators were added to assess the inclusivity of US States this year, including the rates of hate crimes by race, gender, religion, and disability bias; and the percentage of female protection laws.
In addition to the new inclusion measures added to this year's Inclusiveness Index, the website has also been revamped to make it more intuitive for the user to navigate and easily spot changes in state and country rankings.
Users could already sort states and countries by their overall rankings as well as their rankings on each various indicator. But now the Inclusive Index includes a "Change in Rank" column with positive and negative values to show how far up or down the rankings it has moved from the previous year.
Additionally, a new comparison tool was introduced this year allowing the user to select two states or countries to compare their overall rankings, sub indices and the underlying indicators.
Moreover, the Inclusiveness Index landing page now provides an overview of the project with three sections: About; Explore the Data; and Results Overview.
The About section provides background of the project and elaborates on the indicators and methodology. The next section links you to the interactive table displaying the country and state rankings. And the Results Overview section offers a drop-down menu where users can select any year of the study to read about that year's results.
Media Contact
Marc Abizeid
marcabized@berkeley.edu
###