The 2016 Social Progress Index launched June 28. It covers 133 countries with 53 indicators of social and environmental outcomes. Higher GDP per capita alone does not determine real quality of life. The Index ranks Finland the world’s most socially progressive country; Canada in second place tops the G7 nations. Economic growth is not the sole determinant of quality of life. The 2016 Index finds that while social progress—which includes measures of opportunity, healthcare, education and tolerance—does tend to rise as GDP increases, economic wealth on its own does not explain social progress outcomes. Read the full report and explore the interactive data tool at http://socialprogressimperative.org/global-index/

1. SOCIAL
PROGRESS
IMPERATIVE
2016 SOCIAL PROGRESS INDEX
MEDIA BRIEFING

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2016 INDEX AT-A-GLANCE
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RISING GDP - NOT ENOUGH
Although richer countries do better in general than
poorer countries on SPI, GDP alone does not
explain social progress results. E.g. Finland and
Canada have significantly lower GDP per capita
(17th and 13th, respectively) than the US but
significantly outperform it.
YOUNG PEOPLE LACK
SOCIAL PROGRESS
Just 22% of people aged under 25 do.
Youth are more likely to live in countries
that lack basic medical care and clean
water, that are less safe, less free, and
less tolerant.
TOP 12 COUNTRIES
All achieve ‘very high’ social progress
US RANKS 19TH The Index identifies a wide
range of areas in which the US is underperforming
compared to countries with a similar GDP per
capita. The three greatest areas of US
underperformance are on measures of
‘environmental quality,’ ‘health and wellness’ and
‘personal safety.’ Despite spending the most on
healthcare per capita of any country in the world,
the US ranks poorly on ‘health and wellness’ (69th),
below countries including Uganda (42nd), Tunisia
(28th) and Slovenia (47th).
THE WORLD IN 2016 THROUGH
THE LENS OF SOCIAL PROGRESS
OVERVIEW The Social Progress Index is a
comprehensive framework developed for
measuring social progress, and the first to measure
social progress independently of GDP. The 2016
data provides detailed insight into whether citizens
have access to a wide range of progress measures
including basic services, opportunities, healthcare,
education, housing, decent policing, rights and
freedom from discrimination.
but Nordic model not the
only path to success
5/12 ‘VERY HIGH’
PROGRESS
COUNTRIES
ARE NORDIC

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Basic Human Needs Opportunity
Nutrition and Basic Medical Care
§ Undernourishment
§ Depth of food deficit
§ Maternal mortality rate
§ Child mortality rate
§ Deaths from infectious diseases
Water and Sanitation
§ Access to piped water
§ Rural access to improved water source
§ Access to improved sanitation facilities
Shelter
§ Availability of affordable housing
§ Access to electricity
§ Quality of electric supply
§ Household air pollution attributable deaths
Personal Safety
§ Homicide rate
§ Level of violent crime
§ Perceived criminality
§ Political terror
§ Traffic deaths
Access to Basic Knowledge
§ Adult literacy rate
§ Primary school enrollment
§ Lower secondary school enrollment
§ Upper secondary school enrollment
§ Gender parity in secondary enrollment
Access to Information and
Communications
§ Mobile telephone subscriptions
§ Internet users
§ Press Freedom Index
Health and Wellness
§ Life expectancy at 60
§ Premature deaths from non-communicable
diseases
§ Obesity rate
§ Suicide rate
Environmental Quality
§ Outdoor air pollution attributable deaths
§ Wastewater treatment
§ Greenhouse gas emissions
§ Biodiversity and habitat
Personal Rights
§ Political rights
§ Freedom of speech
§ Freedom of assembly/association
§ Freedom of movement
§ Private property rights
Personal Freedom and Choice
§ Freedom over life choices
§ Freedom of religion
§ Early marriage
§ Satisfied demand for contraception
§ Corruption
Tolerance and Inclusion
§ Tolerance for immigrants
§ Tolerance for homosexuals
§ Discrimination and violence against minorities
§ Religious tolerance
§ Community safety net
Access to Advanced Education
§ Years of tertiary schooling
§ Women’s average years in school
§ Inequality in the attainment of education
§ Globally ranked universities
§ Percentage of tertiary students enrolled in
globally ranked universities
Social Progress Index Complete Framework
Foundations of Wellbeing

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OVERPERFORMERS:
Overperformance can signal very
strong performance in social
progress (particularly Costa Rica,
New Zealand, Rwanda).
OVER AND UNDERPERFORMANCE
ON SOCIAL PROGRESS RELATIVE
TO ECONOMIC PEERS
Country performance is measured
against a group of 15 countries most
similar in GDP per capita (PPP) using a 4-
year average to show countries that
over and underperform relative to their
economic peer cohort groups.
UNDERPERFORMERS:
Tend to be countries with natural
resource wealth and countries
afflicted by conflict underperform
but list includes the US.

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OVERALL GLOBAL SCORE…
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If the world
were a
country it
would be
Mongolia
World is doing best on
those areas that have been
the focus of the MDGs
World struggles
most with personal
rights, tolerance
and inclusion
Basic Human Needs Opportunity Foundations of Wellbeing

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SOCIAL PROGRESS INDEX 2016 RESULTS

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SOCIAL PROGRESS INDEX 2016 RESULTS

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SOCIAL PROGRESS DOES INCREASE WITH GDP PER CAPITA
BUT ECONOMIC GROWTH IS NOT THE WHOLE STORY
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COUNTRIES CAN EXPERIENCESIMILAR LEVELS OF SOCIAL PROGRESS
AT VASTLY DIFFERENT LEVELS OF GDP PER CAPITA (PPP)
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New Zealand achieves a
level of social progress
(88.45) almost as high as
Norway (88.70) at a GDP
per capita that is half that
of Norway ($33,360
versus $64,004).

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COUNTRIES CAN EXPERIENCESIMILAR LEVELS OF SOCIAL PROGRESS
AT VASTLY DIFFERENT LEVELS OF GDP PER CAPITA (PPP)
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Slovenia achieves a level
of social progress (84.27)
almost as high as the
United States (84.62) at a
GDP per capita nearly
half that of the United
States ($28,153 versus
$52,118).

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SOCIAL PROGRESS INDEX SCORECARD OVERVIEW
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Reading the relative analysis scorecard. Within the group of peer countries, yellow
signifies that a country’s performance is typical for countries at its level of economic
development, green signifies that the country performs substantially better than its peer
group, and red signifies that the country performs substantially worse than its peer
group.
Standard groupings of countries, such as theclassifications done by the World Bank, are
not appropriate for our purposes for two reasons.
First, the groupings are too large, representing excessively wide ranges of social
performance and therefore few relative strengths and weaknesses.
Second, using these groups, countries at the top or bottom of a group may appear to
have a misleadingly large number of strengths or weaknesses simply because the group
the country is being compared to is at a much lower or higher level of economic
development. We therefore define the group of acountry’s economic peers as the 15
countries closest in GDP PPP per capita. In order to reduce the influence of year-to-year
fluctuations in GDP data, a four-year average is used (2011-2014).
After significant testing, we found thatlarger groupings resulted in a wider range of
typical scores and therefore too few relative strengths and weakness. Smaller groupings
become too sensitive to outliers.
Once the group of comparator countries is established, the country’s performance is
compared to the median performance of countries in the group. The median is used
rather than the mean, to minimize theinfluence of outliers. If the country’s score is
greater than (or less than) the average absolute deviation from the medianof the
comparator group, it is considered a strength (or weakness). Scores that are within one
average absolute deviation are within the rangeof expected scores and are considered
neither strengths nor weaknesses. A floor is established so the thresholds are no less
than those for poorer countries.
When the distribution of scores is tightaround the medianwithtoo little variation to
assess relative strengths and weaknesses, a 1 point band around the medianis used to
determine strengths and weaknesses.
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Find scorecards for all countries included in the index online here.
Background. The component, dimension and overall Social Progress Index scores are
scaled from 0 to 100 with 100 as the score that a country would achieve were it to
have the highest possible score on every indicator, and 0 as the score were it to have
the lowest possible score on every indicator. With this scale, it is possible to evaluate
a country’s performance relative to the best and worst possible score. In some cases,
it is also helpful to compare a country’s performance to other countries at a similar
level of economic development. For example, a lower-income country may have a low
score on a certain component, but could greatly exceed typical scores for countries
with similar per capita incomes. Conversely, a high-income country may have a high
absolute score on a component, but still fall short of what is typical for comparably
wealthy countries. For this reason, we have developed a methodology to present a
country’s strengths and weaknesses on a relative rather than absolute basis,
comparing a country’s performance to that of its economic peers.

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