The Pauli exclusion principle has a strong impact on the properties and the behavior of most fermionic quantum systems. Remarkably, even stronger restrictions on fermionic natural occupation numbers follow from the fermionic exchange symmetry. We develop an operationally meaningful measure which allows one to quantify the potential physical relevance of those generalized Pauli constraints beyond the well-established relevance of Pauli’s exclusion principle. It is based on a geometric hierarchy induced by Pauli exclusion principle constraints. The significance of that measure is illustrated for a few-fermion model which also confirms such nontrivial relevance of the generalized Pauli constraints.