Photo Credit: nationalgeographic.com
The recently-released Social Progress Index finds out that out of 163 countries assessed worldwide, Canada has risen to No.7 from No.9 last year in the Tier-1 category just behind the Scandinavian countries, New Zealand and Switzerland. The USA, Brazil and Hungary are the only ones in which people are worse off when the index began in 2011.
The index, inspired by research of Nobel-winning economists, collects 50 metrics of well-being – nutrition, safety, freedom, the environment, health, education and more – to measure quality of life. Norway comes out on top in the 2020 edition, followed by Denmark, Finland and New Zealand. South Sudan is at the bottom, with Chad, Central African Republic and Eritrea just behind. Canada’s rankings went up and down over the years. We were No. 2 in 2016; dropped to No.6 in 2017; and further slid to No.14 in 2018.
This year, Canada has an overall score of 91.40 compared to Norway’s overall top score of 92.3. We score 97.03 in Basic Human Needs; 90.88 in Foundations of Well-Being; and 86.31 in Opportunity.
Basic Human Needs include nutrition and basic medical care, water and sanitation, shelter, and personal safety. We score even higher (97.03) than No.1 country Norway (96.85) in this category. Foundations of Wellbeing include access to basic knowledge, access to information and communications, health and wellness, and environmental quality. In this category, we score slightly lower (90.88) than the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland and New Zealand.
In the third category of Opportunity, Canada scores slightly lower than all Scandinavian countries but are still ahead of New Zealand, Switzerland, Australia, Iceland and the Netherlands among the top 10 countries. Opportunity includes personal rights, personal freedom and choice, inclusiveness and access to advanced education.
According to the Execurive Summary of the 2020 Social Progress Index, the study aggregates 50 social and environmental outcome indicators from 163 countries. On average, the world is improving, but progress is slow and uneven. Since 2011, the world has improved most on Access to Information and Communications, Access to Advanced Education, Shelter, and Water and Sanitation. Unfortunately, world progress has been uneven and declines in Personal Rights and Inclusiveness, and stagnation on Personal Safety and Environmental Quality.
Researchers of The Social Progress Index define a country’s economic peers as the 15 countries closest in GDP per capita purchasing power parity (PPP). By analyzing a country’s performance relative to its economic peers, they can uncover which countries are best at turning each dollar of income into better social outcomes. They also analyse the world’s performance relative to its wealth by comparing its scores to the 15 countries closest in GDP to the global average. Just 13 countries over-perform on social progress relative to their incomes, while 35 countries are underperformers. Kyrgyzstan and Ghana over-perform on social progress by the greatest margin, while Saudi Arabia and Equatorial Guinea are the biggest underperformers. Singapore, China, Turkey, Iran, Israel and Russia are all underperformers.
Among the G7 countries, Italy has made the biggest improvement in social progress followed by Canada and Japan. The U.S. Is the only G7 country that has gone backwards on social progress.
In fact, the U.S., in spite of its immense wealth, military power and cultural influence, ranks an abysmal 28th in the category of Tier-2 countries – having slipped from 19th in 2011 and from 26th last year. The index now puts the U.S. behind significantly poorer countries including Estonia, Czech Republc, Cyprus and Greece.
The U.S. ranks No.1 in the world in quality of universities, but No.91 in access to quality basic education. The U.S. leads the world in medical technology, yet they are No.97 in access to quality healthcare.
Since 2011, the U.S. has improved most on Access to Information and Communications, and Environmental Quality, but there have been significant declines in Personal Safety, Personal Rights and Inclusiveness.
The data for the latest index predates COVID-19, which has had a disproportionate impact on the U.S. and seems likely to exacerbate the deterioration of America’s standing. The New York Times reported that the coronavirus will affect health, longevity and education, with the impact particularly large in the U.S. and Brazil. According to Michael Green, the CEO of the group that puts out the Social Progress Index, the equity and inclusiveness measured by the index seem to help protect societies from the virus. “Societies that are inclusive, tolerant and better educated are better able to manage the pandemic,” Green said.
Maybe that’s why the COVID-19 death rates in the U.S. is 22.2 times Canada’s rates even though the U.S. population is only 10 times ours. America also has 20 percent of the world’s COVID-19 deaths even though ithe U. S. has only four percent of the world’s population.
We Canadians always complain about our government, our weather and our healthcare system. And, yes, we have to combat systemic racism. But we should be grateful that we have the good fortune to live in a wonderful country – a stable, prosperous, fair, decent, and relatively tolerant place. Like the rest of the pandemic-stricken world, we worry about how we will get through this and how life will change when it’s over. But instead of complaining about the inconveniences of donning masks and temporarily suspending our social activities, we should be grateful that the majority of us are safe and healthy because we have faith in our country and have listened to the advice given by public-health officials guided by science. Canada is not perfect, but as demonstrated by the 2020 Social Progress Index, we shine when compared to the rest of the world, particularly our southern neighbours.