London-based research firm, the Legatum Institute, has released its latest Prosperity Index, illustrating how countries around the world have moved toward or away from prosperity over the last year.

In compiling the index, the Legatum Institute looked at over 104 different variables across nine major pillars including:

Economic Quality

Business Environment

Governance

Personal Freedom

Social Capital

Safety and Security

Education

Health

The Natural Environment

These are the top 25 and bottom 25 countries ranked in the index

South Africa continued to slide down the index, indicating that the country is moving further away from providing a prosperous life to its citizens.

In the 2018 rankings, South Africa placed 68th, down 16 places from 2017, and from 48th in 2016.

When adjusting for the number of countries that have been added and removed from the study, South Africa has fallen by 5 places from 63rd to 68th when compared to last year, Legatum said.

“In the Prosperity Pillar rankings, South Africa performs best on Personal Freedom and Social Capital and scores lowest on the Economic Quality pillar,” Legatum said.

In Social Capital, the country improved by 3 places, but dropped 15 places on Business Environment.

South Africa ranks second-highest in the sub-Saharan Africa region for Personal Freedom, scoring well for legal rights for LGBT relationships and government restrictions on religion having gone down from last year.

However, despite the progress being made in South Africa on that front, it has two black marks against it.

The first is safety and security rankings. In the 2018 Index, South Africa’s safety and security ranked 123rd overall, which is actually a slight improvement from 2017 (124th) – however it remains a major problem.

The other major issue highlighted by Legatum is the deterioration of the economy, with the country’s economic quality ranking seeing a massive drop to 125th from 92nd in 2017.

Here, Legatum specifically noted a deterioration in South Africa’s free market policies, which it said saw the biggest drop among all the countries measured.

“When it comes to anti-monopoly policy, which measures whether producers can compete freely in the market place and whether consumers have choice in what to purchase, this indicator worsened more than any other country over the last year,” it said.

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