Social Progress Index : a new way to measure the well being of a country?

The Social Progress Index

The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income. Simon Kuznets, 1934

Learn about the revolutionary way to measure nations’ welfare Compare the welfare of every nation Find out which countries are at the top Answer our questions to find out which country suits you best Compare your current country with your ideal country Book your visit to your ideal country

Simon Kuznets is an American economist who received the Nobel Prize in economics in 1971; he is a pioneer for quantitative economic history, and thus considered at the root of the measure that is GDP. Despite his warning, prononced in front of the American Congress, GDP and its growth are nowadays still the main criteria to judge of the well-being of a country. Today, different researchers and associations aim at defining a new measure of well-being, and one is currently about to be adopted by the European Union : the Social Progress Index.

The SPI is the average of three indices, aggregating themselves different indices in order to take into account several dimensions essential to well being, such as basic human needs or opportunities, defined as a key criteria by Amartya Sen. You can discover the three indices and their components, as well as the components of these components, by cliking on the buttons below :

Basic Human Needs (BHN) Nutrition and Basic Human Needs Deaths from infectious diseases Depth of food deficit Child mortality rate Maternal mortality rate Undernourishment Water and Sanitation Access to improved water source Access to piped water Rural access to improved water source Shelter Access to electricity Availability of affordable housing Household air pollution attributable deaths Quality of electricity supply Personal Safety Homicide rate Level of violent crime Perceived criminality Political terror Traffic deaths

Foundations of Wellbeing (FWB) Access to Basic Knowledge Adult literacy rate Primary school enrollment Lower secondary school enrollment PUpper secondary school enrollment Gender parity in secondary enrollment Access to Information & Communication Mobile telephone subscriptions Internet users Press Freedom Index Health & Wellness Life expectancy Premature deaths from non-communicable diseases Obesity rate Outdoor air pollution attributable deaths Suicide rate Ecosystem Sustainability Greenhouse gas emissions Biodiversity and habitat Water withdrawals as a percentage of resources

Opportunity (OPP) Personal Rights Political rights Freedom of speech Freedom of assembly/association Freedom of movement Private property rights Personal Freedom & Choice Freedom over life choices Freedom of religion Early marriage Satisfied demand for contraception Corruption Tolerance & 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 Number of globally ranked universities



The SPI across the world

Now that the construction of the SPI has been exposed, time to discover how well countries are performing according to this index and its subindices. You can pass your mouse on the map below to see the grade each country got according to the SPI (blue), but also according to the three main categories composing it : basic human needs (green), foundations of well being (red) and opportunity (yellow). The higher the grade, the more intense the color is.

SPI BHN FWB OPP

The SPI ranking

Some might find some surprising results, such as France having a lower score than Slovenia according to the SPI index. You can find in the table below all the countries and the grade associated for the four indices of interest (click on the buttons below to see the index you are interested in), that you can order by country by cliking on countries or by ranking if you click on index (click again to change the order). One interesting thing to notice is the very good performance of the Northern countries with the SPI index, with Norway and Sweden at the top, Iceland forth and Finland sixth.

Countries Index

SPI BHN FWB OPP

Comparing precisely

One may want more information on the scores obtained for each category, rather than just global grades and rankings. With spider graph below, you can choose two countries (or only one by selecting the same country) and see the score they get for each subindex of the three main indices composing the SPI. It's surprising to see some countries closer than we may have thougt (for example France and Estonia.

What country is made for you

First let's check what is important for your choice Relevance of the temperature: Relevant Irrelevant Best temperature Cold Hot Relevance of precipitation Relevant Irrelevant Best humidity Humid Dry Relevance of the cost of living Relevant Irrelevant Relevance of the Social Progress Index Relevant Irrelevant Relevance of the safety of the country Relevant Irrelevant Relevance of the cultural heritage Relevant Irrelevant Are you ready? Let's go!

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About us

We are a team of 4 students at ENSAE ParisTech studying data science. This website is the project of our data visualisation course. Please, feel free to send us your feedback at SPIFTW2016@gmail.com