Poland and the Social Progress Index
You might have seen Michael Green's popular TED talk about the measurement he created called the Social Progress Index. The measure, according to Green, is a standard to rank societies based on how much they meet the needs of citizens. In that way, its supposed to be 21st century's answer to, as Green argues, outdated and ubiquitous gross domestic product or GDP. How does Poland stack up on that measure?
Poland is 27th in the world with a score of 77.44 (high is a maximum). New Zealand, world leader, has a score of 88.24 and Poland does about as well as Chile, Italy, Slovakia, South Korea or Latvia. Slovenia, Estonia, Slovakia and Czech Republic all score higher than Poland.
But what exactly is the index?
The concept is composed of several sub-concepts, such as Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Wellbeing and Opportunity. Each are then composed of other sub-concepts and then each of them are composites of several measures. For example, Tolerance and Inclusion is composed of:
Tolerance and Inclusion measurement is where Poland suffers a low score of 54, placing 54th in the world behind Bolivia, Laos and Burkina Faso. Poland is well below the global median on that measure. Its particularly the tolerance for homosexuals where Poland is doing very poorly, with a score of 19 (64th in the world!). Tolerance for immigrants is also quite low. On a different note, Health and Wellness is also a major problem with Poland being 82nd in the world.
Poland does the best on Personal Rights (24th in the world), Nutrition and Basic Medical Care (16th), Personal Safety (22nd), Access to Information (18th), and Ecosystem Sustainability (16th). More detailed results are below.
Overall, its an interesting approach and an interesting measure that is certainly substantially broader and closer to the people than GDP. Like all other such measures, the Social Progress Index has its faults (full methodological appendix is here), but its also useful as food for thought in terms of where Poland succeeds and where there is still work to be done (tolerance seems one societal aspect that needs improvements).
Dominik Stecuła is the Director of Research and Data Analysis at the Piast Institute and a doctoral student in political science at the University of British Columbia. He is the founder of Nihil Novi.