Social Indicators of Development

The main social indicators of development include education, health, employment rates and gender equality.

Some examples of social indicators of development include:

  1. Education – for example how many years of schooling children have.
  2. Health – often measured by life expectancy.
  3. Employment Rates
  4. Gender equality
  5. Peacefulness
  6. Democracy
  7. Corruption
  8. Media freedoms
  9. Civil Rights
  10. Crime/ social unrest
  11. Suicide Rates
  12. Composite indicators of all of the above

A well known example of a social indicator of development is the Human Development Index, which combines one economic indicator (Gross National Income) with two social indicators: life expectancy and years of schooling into one score and ranks countries accordingly.

Social Indicators of development give a much broader picture of how developed a country is compared to purely economic indicators such as GDP which merely focus on economic productivity. Social indicators are more useful in showing us the extent to which income generated in a country actually benefits ordinary people.

The World Bank provides the most comprehensive data on social indicators of development, and you can also find many specific social indicators of development within the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The Sustainable Development Goals selectively uses some World Bank data and is a much more accessible way for the lay person to monitor social development precisely because it is more limited in scope than the World Bank data.

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.

For each indicator, firstly we look at some of the indicators the World Bank uses and then we look at the Millennium Development Goals. Where appropriate we will also look at other sources of data.

The purpose of this post isn’t to assess the validity of the different indicators, just to provide an overview of HOW MUCH data there is out there!

Indicators of Education and Development

The World Bank uses several 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 World Bank also monitors the quality of education systems and finance focussing indicators such as how effectively students are monitored and quality of decision making.

*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.

The United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals has ten targets for education development (with a heavy focus on gender equity and also ensuring all students are taught about sustainable development) and twelve main indicators to measure these targets including:

  • Flows of official development aid for scholarships
  • The proportion of teachers with qualifications.
  • The proportion of schools providing safe facilities.

Indicators of Health and Development

The United Nations has 13 targets and 28 indicators for health and development including

  • maternal mortality ratio
  • proportion of live births attended by a health professional
  • under five mortality rate
  • Neo natal mortality rate
  • number of new HIV infections per 1000
  • Tuberculosis, malaria and Hepatitis B rates per 1000
  • Deaths from diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes
  • Suicide rates
  • treatments for drug addiction
  • alcohol consumption
  • deaths from road traffic injuries
  • adolescent birth rates
  • effective access to family planning
  • death rates from air pollution and poor hygiene.
  • Smoking rates
  • proportion of populations vaccinated and with access to vaccinations
  • Health worker density and distribution
  • Health emergency preparedness.

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

Later on I will also cover the following:

  • Health
  • Employment Rates
  • Gender equality
  • Peacefulness
  • Democracy
  • Corruption
  • Consumption
  • Leisure/ Media
  • Civil Rights
  • Crime/ social unrest
  • Suicide Rates
  • Composite indicators of all of the above!!!

I might also cover some of the more subjective indicators of development:

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

Signposting and related posts

This material is mainly relevant to the Global Development and Globalisation module, taught as part of the AQA’s A-level sociology specification.

To return to the homepage – revisesociology.com

The Human Development Index

The United Nations uses The Human Development Index (HDI) as a summary measure for assessing long-term progress in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living. It provides a useful ‘snap-shot’ of a country’s economic and social development.

HDI Scores in 2020

Dark Green is high ranging through to dark red which is low….

Source

The Human Development Index

The Human Development Index measures Human Development using four indicators

  • To measure health – Life expectancy at birth
  • To measure education – the average (mean) number years of adult education adults over 25 have received and the number of expected years of education children attending school can expect
  • To measure standard of living – Gross National Income per capita (PPP)

Each country is then given a rank from between 0 and 1 based on how well it scores in relation to ‘constructed minimum’ and ‘observed maximum scores for each of these criteria. The minimum and maximum scores for each criteria are as below

 Minimum scores*Perceived maximums
Life expectancy at birth2083.2
Mean years of adult education adults over 25 have received013.2
number of years of education children attending school can expect020.6
Gross National Income per capita (PPP)163108, 211

(*This is the level below which the UN believes there is no prospect for human development!)

How does the HDI work out a country’s score? – it’s quite easy – if a country has a life expectancy of 83.2, and all the other maximums, it would score one, if it had a life expectancy of 20, and all the other minimums it would score zero. If it was half way between the minimum and maximum – it would score 0.5 – NB by the UK’s standards, this would be a pretty low level of human development!

The Human Development Index – Best and Worst Performers

Top

1 Norway0.954
2  Switzerland0.946
3 Ireland0.942
4 Germany0.939
4 Hong Kong0.939
6 Australia0.938
6 Iceland0.938
8 Sweden0.937
9 Singapore0.935
10 Netherlands0.933

Towards the Bottom 

179 Congo, Democratic Republic e0.459
180 Mozambique0.446
181 Sierra Leone0.438
182 Burkina Faso0.434
182 Eritrea0.434
184 Mali0.427
185 Burundi0.423
186 South Sudan0.413
187 Chad0.401
188 Central African Republic0.381
189 Niger0.377

What do the scores above mean?

  • If a country scores 1-0.788 it is classified as a ‘developed country’ with ‘high human development’ – as are 42 countries – most European countries come into this category. These are typically the countries with GNIs of $40K per capita or more, 13 full years of education and 80+ life expectancies.
  • If a country scores 0.48 or lower it is classified as having Low human development – e.g. Sierra Leonne – here you will see a GNI per capita of below $1000, 10 years or less of school and life expectancies in the 60s.

Advantages of the Human Development Index

  • It provides us with a much fuller picture of how well developed a country is, allowing for fuller comparisons to be made.
  • It shows us that while there is a general correlation between economic and social development, two countries with the same level of economic development may have different levels of social development. See below for examples.
  • Some argue that this is a more human centred approach, concerned more with actual human welfare than just mere economics. It gets more to ‘the point’ of economic development.

Two Limitations of the Human Development Index

  • Relying on the HDI score alone may disguise a lack of social development in a country – for example a very high GNI can compensate for poor life-expectancy, as is the case in the United States.
  • It is still only provides a fairly limited indication of social development – only health and education are covered – there are many other ways of measuring health and education.