The Social Progress of Nations Revisited

Social progress and well-being throughout the world has arrived at a critical turning point. Following decades of social losses among the world’s poorest developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, the majority of these and other nations now are experiencing significant social gains. Using the Weighted Index of Social Progress (WISP18), the author traces the net social gains and social losses experienced by most the world’s nations over a 50-year time, ranging from 1970 to the present. The data reported draw on the author’s extensive data base of historical and contemporary social indicators and links the current study to his and other reports of social progress and well-being that have been published this period. Data are reported at four levels of analysis, i.e., that of the world-as-a-whole, regional (continental) data, subregional data using the preceding and, finally, for selected countries for which the changes have been most remarkable. The net social gains on the WISP18 and earlier version of the WISP portray very positive outcomes for the 162 countries included in the study (representing 95% of the world’s total population) for both the near- and long-term.