The International Index of Social Progress

The International Index of Social Progress (ISP) and the Weighted Index of Social Progress (WISP) are well-established tools developed since 1974 by Richard Estes of the University of Pennsylvania's social work faculty. They measure economic development, social and political conditions, and the ability of nations to produce welfare services for their citizens. They have become 'a way of assessing shifts over time in the capacity of nations to provide more adequately for the basic social and material needs of their populations.' All nations with over one million inhabitants are included - 98% of the world's population.

'Britain came 13th. The top ten were: Denmark, followed by Norway, Sweden, Austria, Netherlands, France, West Germany, Italy, Finland and Belgium'

In the latest survey, covering 1970 to 1990 (see Note 1 below), Britain came 13th on the ISP and 12th on the WISP out of 124 nations. The top ten in 1990 were: Denmark, followed by Norway, Sweden, Austria, Netherlands, France, West Germany, Italy, Finland and Belgium. The worst ten, ranked from the least desirable upwards, were: Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola, Chad, Guinea, Somali, Sierra Leone, Niger, Afghanistan and Mali. The greatest lowering of social progress between 1970 and 1990 was observed within the (then) Soviet bloc, with an average 6% loss of ISP - particularly within the USSR itself (-19 per cent), 'for which sharp Index declines were observed on the Defence Effort, Political Participation, Economic, Education and Women Status sub-indexes.'

Richard Estes describes the background to a previous ISP survey in his books 'The Social Progress of Nations' (1984) and 'Trends in World Social Development' (1988) - see Note 2 below. Estes reflects that the majority of previous cross-national comparative efforts to measure quality of life or social well-being have been impaired by: serious conceptual problems, missing or unavailable data, a worldwide shortage of suitable researchers and statisticians, political tensions and governments' concerns about how the resulting data will be used.

Estes looks at previous work in some detail:

Work by the United Nations on quality of life or 'levels of living' has been biased towards a 'basic needs' approach - the extent to which the most fundamental needs of people are met, irrespective of other factors. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (the OECD, made up of 24 of the world's richest nations) has for more than a decade been planning to measure well-being within its nations, but has not so far got much beyond establishing the list of relevant social concerns. Morris D. Morris and colleagues at the Overseas Development Council in Washington have developed a Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI) measuring infant mortality, expectation of life at birth and rates of adult literacy, but these mainly reflect only the provision of health and educational services. Studies on subjective feelings of human well-being have nearly all been on Western subjects. Estes posits the 'relative non-transferability (that is, non-equivalence) of basic psychological concepts from one culture to another' and that the interpretation of 'happiness' or 'satisfaction with life' differs among people living in entirely different societies.

The newly created 'Human Development Index' formulated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), according to Estes, reflects many of the same limitations as earlier efforts: the number of factors included in the index is too limited given the intent of the index (ie like the Physical Quality of Life Index, the Human Development Index contains only three items) and continues to place more emphasis on economic rather than social development.

Richard Estes' own approach in developing his Index of Social Progress was to use available data from a variety of sources to measure and aggregate 46 different factors for each nation:

- School enrolment ratio, first level;
- Per cent grade 1 enrolment completing primary school;
- School enrolment ratio, second level;
- School enrolment ratio, third level;
- Per cent adult illiteracy;
- Per cent GNP in education;
- Rate infant mortality per 1,000 liveborn;
- Population in thousands per physician;
- Life expectancy at 1 year;
- Under 5 years child mortality rates;
- Per capita daily calorie supply as % of requirement;
- Per cent children immunised at age one, DPT;
- Per cent children immunised at age one, Measles;
- Female life expectation at birth;
- Female adult literacy rate;
- Per cent married women using contraception;
- Maternal mortality rate per 100,000 live born;
- Female primary school enrolment as per cent of males;
- Female secondary school enrolment as per cent of males;
- Military expenditures as per cent of GNP;
- Per capita GNP in dollars;
- GNP per capita annual growth rate;
- Real GDP per head;
- Average annual rate of inflation;
- Per capita food production index;
- External public debt as per cent of GNP;
- Total population;
- Crude birth rate per 1,000 population;
- Crude death rate per 1,000 population;
- Rate of population increase;
- Per cent of population under 15 years;
- Per cent of population over 60 years;
- Per cent arable land mass;
- Natural disaster vulnerability index;
- Average annual deaths from natural disasters per million population;
- Violation of political rights index;
- Violations of civil liberties index;
- Composite human suffering index;

'Largest per cent sharing same mother tongue'

- Largest per cent sharing same mother tongue;
- Largest per cent sharing same basic religious belief;
- Largest per cent sharing same or similar racial/ethnic origins;
- Years since first law - old age, invalidity, death;
- Years since first law - sickness and maternity;
- Years since first law - work injury;
- Years since first law - unemployment;
- Years since first law - family allowances.

Each of the above factors is given a plus or minus sign, depending on whether more or less of it contributes towards or diminishes social progress. Estes used the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to help identify the types of humanistically orientated factors to be included in his Index of Social Progress.

'The world's socially leading nations are comparatively small in average population size'

Estes concludes that the world's socially leading nations are comparatively small in average population size (18.4 million persons), culturally homogenous, have long histories of political independence, high levels of economic cooperation and of political stability, and commit relatively few of their national resources to defence expenditure.

Estes' research survey results were rather ridiculed in the British press when first published in 1986. Thus a Times leader (17/9/86) asserted: 'Professor Estes is clearly in need of something better to do. Can anyone plumb the quality of life without taking into account the weather, the food and the wine? Can anyone really assess, in mathematical or any other terms, the value of living in Britain? The very faults which lose this country points in any theoretical league of happiness reflect a sense of freedom which Britain still manages to instil in its inhabitants.' And the Daily Mail (20/9/86), in a report on his placing of Denmark at the top of the list, commented that the Danes 'consume more tranquillisers than anyone else on earth, and have the worst psychiatric problems. Violent crime, drug abuse and alcoholism have all doubled in the last ten years. The welfare system is mainly needed to help those who crack up under the strain of paying for it.'

- Note 1: Detailed in the Estes, R: 1992, 'At the Crossroads: Dilemmas in Social Development Toward the Year 2000 and Beyond' (New York and London: Praedger Publishers). Shorter versions are available from the author at University of Pennsylvania, School of Social Work, 3701 Locust Walk, Philadelphia 19104-6214, USA (tel 215 898 5531).
- Note 2: Estes, R: 1988, 'Trends in World Social Development', Praeger Publishers, New York, ISBN 0 275 92613 3 ($39-95 from Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, PO Box 5007, Westport, CT 06881, USA); and Estes, R: 1984, 'The Social Progress of Nations' ($24-95 also from Praeger Publishers, New York, ISBN 0 245 91151 9).
- Note 3: See also Estes, R: 1986, 'Towards a Quality of Life Index', in 'The Third World: definition, theory and concept', edited by Norwine and Gonzalez,(London: George Allen and Unwin). And Estes, R: 1990, 'Development Under Different Political and Economic Systems', Social Development Issues 13 (1): 5-19.

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