This report is authored by Michael Green, Jaromír Harmáček, Mohamed Htitich and Petra Krylova at Social Progress Imperative.

Report name

Social Progress Index 2022

Who wrote this report?

The Social Progress Imperative is a global non-profit whose mission is to use data to influence policies and investments to better serve all of humanity.

Social progress is defined as the capacity of a society to meet the basic human needs of its citizens; establish the building blocks that allow citizens and communities to enhance and sustain the quality of their lives; and create the conditions for all individuals to reach their full potential.

The Social Progress Index® is built on these fundamentals, to understand the lived reality of people, to inspire action and improve lives. It has been used in more than 45 countries at a national and local level, by governments, businesses and NGOs to meet the pressing needs of communities and to advance social progress.

Best quote

Forward movement in world social progress was nearly imperceptible last year. While the direct and indirect effects of Covid play a role, a precipitous decline in personal rights around the world betrays an even deeper problem, for which there is little on the horizon to suggest that 2023 will be a year of resurgence. The yen to get back to business as usual in a time of crisis is strong, but if policymakers just focus on an economic recovery, they will miss half the story.

– Michael Green, CEO, Social Progress Imperative

Key takeaways:

  • The world is at risk of a social progress recession in 2023. On average, the world is improving, but since 2017, the rate of progress has slowed by nearly half.
  • 112 countries across all regions of the world have declined on Personal Rights and stagnated or retreated on Inclusiveness since 2011. Four of the G7 countries - Canada, the UK, the US and France, have declined in rights over the past decade.
  • If the European Union were a country, it would rank 21st, the same as Spain. It has shown solid improvement (+2.24) since 2011 with gains in access to information, environmental quality and access to advanced education but needs to improve on health and wellness, school enrollment and attainment and internet users.
  • The United Kingdom has lost a decade of social progress (-0.28 since 2011). This highlights how responding to an economic crisis can have a knock-on effect on a country’s social progress. We see the impact of austerity measures and Brexit showing up in the data in every area from education, to healthcare, to rights and tolerance.

What’s in this report?

The 2022 Social Progress Index® uses 12 components and 60 indicators to measure the social performance of 169 countries fully and an additional 27 countries partially. The index focuses on outcomes and measures all areas of societal wellbeing, including: water and sanitation, basic nutrition and medical care, safety, education, healthcare, environmental quality, personal rights, inclusiveness and beyond.

You can explore and compare results by country or region to see why some countries are performing better than others. There is a correlation between the countries with higher GDP having higher social outcomes, however, there are countries that are much better at turning their economic resources into positive social outcomes than others. For example, the Nordic countries hold five of the top six slots of the ranking, while the United Kingdom has slipped into a social progress recession after a lost decade of social progress.

The global index is updated and recalculated on an annual basis. The Social Progress Imperative also produces national and local level indexes across the world, allowing for a deep understanding of what is happening within a country or specific community.

The 2022 Social Progress Index® is available to download, you can also read the report and explore the data with the interactive tool.

Why should you read this report?

The 2022 Social Progress Index® is one of the world’s largest curated collections of social and environmental data that is a holistic measure of societal well-being, independent of economic factors. It is designed as a complement to GDP and other economic indicators to help us understand the lived realities of people across the world.

The report is a signal of how the world is progressing, of where it is possible to make gains and of the areas where we need to focus. It provides a common language for alignment about the areas that matter most for human progress.

Who is this report for?

For a decade the Social Progress Index has been deployed at a global, national and local level. Leaders in every sector – government, business and civil society – use it to understand the strengths and vulnerabilities of their communities, to enable better public policy and investment decisions. It looks beyond GDP to decouple economic health from what matters most to people. The Social Progress Index is transforming the way governments use data to respond to the needs of people. From the EU to India and beyond, it has become a critical tool for decision-making. Taking a data-driven approach allows for a common understanding of people’s lived realities to enable action, drive change and make an impact.

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