Costa Rica is, on paper, one of the most LGBTQ-progressive countries in the Americas. Same-sex marriage and joint adoption have been legal since 2020 — the first country in Central America to get there. Legal gender recognition works on self-identification (since 2018), non-binary markers are recognised (2022), hate-crime law explicitly covers sexual orientation and gender identity (2022), and the state has funded gender-affirming healthcare since 2017. That's why the Equaldex Equality Index scores its legal side at 85/100. The catch is the other half of the score: public opinion sits at just 54/100, so acceptance in daily life lags well behind the law — the index blends the two into ~6.9, and it's not covered by ILGA's Europe-only map, so this is an Equaldex proxy (hence the ~).

Costa Rica is one of only two full democracies in Latin America (with Uruguay) on the EIU Democracy Index — 8.29 in 2024 — and it abolished its army in 1948, a fact locals are rightly proud of. Press freedom is the strongest in the region: Reporters Without Borders ranks it 18th of 180 in 2026, the only Latin American country in the global top 20. The nuance worth knowing: RSF has flagged a decline since 2022 under President Rodrigo Chaves, whose government has taken a confrontational stance toward critical media — verbal attacks on journalists and restricted access to public information. Institutions remain strong, but this is a live tension, not a settled picture.

Costa Rica scores well on the WEF Global Gender Gap Index — 0.786, 16th of 148 in 2025 and second in Latin America. Educational attainment is at near-parity and women are well represented in politics. One thing travellers sometimes assume is more liberal than it is: abortion is only permitted to protect the woman's life or health, not on request, though therapeutic-abortion guidelines were formalised in 2019.

Costa Rica has an independent judiciary and ranks 28th of 143 on the WJP Rule of Law Index (0.68 in 2025) — the second-strongest in Latin America after Uruguay, and notably high on constraints on government power and open government. The score is held back by the region-wide pressures of organised crime and a rising homicide rate, which strain the criminal-justice system, plus some corruption concerns. Solid by regional standards, middling by Western-European ones.

Overall child-labour prevalence in Costa Rica is low and the government made "moderate advancement" in the US Department of Labor's most recent assessment, with new national policy and expanded detection efforts. But it isn't a clean record: coffee — the country's signature export — appears on the ILAB List of Goods produced with child labour, with children involved in the harvest, and enforcement gaps remain. That's why this sits at 7.0 rather than up with the child-labour-free European scores.