The main social indicators of development include education, health, employment and unemployment rates and gender equality, and this post introduces students to the specific indicators which institutions such as the World Bank and United Nations use to measure how ‘developed’ a country is, and the main indices which are used to compare the levels of development of different countries.

Indicators Used to Measure Education and Development

The World Bank uses the following eight core indicators to measure how developed a country is in terms of education:

• The net enrolment rate for pre-primary
• The net enrolment rate for primary*
• The net enrolment rate for secondary education
• The gross enrolment ratio for tertiary (further) education.
• Gender parity for primary education (using the gross enrolment ratio)**
• primary completion rate for both sexes
• The total number of primary aged children who are out of school.
• Government expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP.

*The net enrolment rate for primary is ‘the number of pupils of official primary school age (according to ISCED97) who are enrolled in primary education as a percentage of the total children of the official school age population’.

**The gross enrolment rate for primary school The number of children enrolled in primary school (of any age) as a percentage of the total children of the official school age population

The difference between Net Enrolment Rate and Gross Enrolment Rate is explained succinctly in this blog post on NER, GER and Universal Primary Education.

Other social indicators to be covered in a future post…..

• The Birth Rate and Fertility Rate
• Suicide rates
• Peacefulness

(Subjective Indicators)

• Life satisfaction (‘happiness’ indicators)
• Trust
• confidence
• well-being
• perceived security

1. Education
2. Health
3. Work
4. Gender equality
5. Peacefulness
6. Democracy
7. Corruption
8. Consumption
9. Pollution
10. Leisure/ Media
11. Civil Rights
12. Crime/ social unrest
13. Composite indicators of all of the above!!!