Premium AccessMethodology
Social Progress Index Time Series

The Social Progress Index Time Series is the most expansive review of social progress ever undertaken. (1990-2023)

Drawing on 52 social and environmental outcome indicators, it explores changes in people’s lives, from health and education to environmental quality, rights and more, with full or partial coverage of 196 countries.
‍
Compare countries and regions, discover where progress has accelerated, stalled or reversed, and identify priorities for action.
‍
Explore the interactive tool below to uncover key insights.

Ready to take your analysis further? Discover premium access.
Explore premium access

2025

AlTi Global Social Progress Index

The AlTi Global Social Progress Index is the most comprehensive and rigorous assessment of the wellbeing of a society. By focusing only on the non-economic aspects of social performance, the index offers actionable data insights revealing areas of need and opportunities for improvement.

Key Insights

From hope to fragmentation
A new era of progress is needed
Far fewer countries with low social progress
Progress remains uneven across regions
The break in global progress
The G20
The world advanced, but the route to progress is uneven

Over the past three decades, humanity has made remarkable gains in societal wellbeing, adding 12.7 points to global social progress since 1990 and narrowing the gap between the world's most and least advanced regions.

This historic milestone lifted dozens of nations out of deprivation, reducing the number of low-performing countries in social progress from 47 to just seven. These seven countries – Chad, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Niger, Somalia, Eritrea, and South Sudan – are the only ones in the world with scores below 40 points out of 100.

However, this trajectory of hope is now encountering a turning point. Since 2010, the annual momentum of global progress has slowed by 41%. This deceleration in social progress is due to a steep decline in Rights and Voices and Inclusive Society. The Opportunity dimension has fallen 2 points since its 2012 peak, signaling that while access to infrastructure and services expands, the freedoms and rights that anchor resilient societies are actively sliding backward.
‍
Download image
Over the last 34 years, the world has undeniably built a higher baseline for social wellbeing, raising the world´s Social Progress Index score from 51.1 in 1990 to 63.8 by 2023. This 12.7 point gain shows that steady, long-term investment in improving people’s quality of life yields real results.

From 1995 to 2010, the world advanced at an average pace of nearly half a point (0.49) per year. However, every consecutive block since 2010 has registered step-down declines in growth.

While the world’s trajectory remains positive, the upward momentum is flattening. The next era of development will require far more strategic solutions beyond infrastructure and access to services to keep global progress moving forward.
‍
Download image
One of the clearest achievements of the past three decades is the sharp decline in the number of countries with low social progress. Between 1990 and 2023, the number scoring below 40 on the Social Progress Index fell from 47 to just seven.

Over the same period, the number of countries achieving high social progress, with scores above 80, nearly tripled from 16 to 45. These shifts reflect substantial improvements in social progress across countries. Gaps between countries and regions have also narrowed, but convergence has been more gradual, and large differences remain.
‍
Download image
‍Every region improved, but at different rates and from very different starting points. Lower-scoring regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia achieved substantial long-term gains, narrowing the distance to the highest-scoring regions.

Nevertheless, a wide regional divide remains. These uneven trajectories highlight the importance of approaches tailored to each region’s challenges.

Download image
While the world has made long-term gains in Basic Needs and Foundations of Wellbeing since 1990, Opportunity marks a sharp break in this overall upward trend.
‍
Opportunity peaked in 2012 and fell by 2.0 points by 2023. Despite improvements in areas such as basic needs, education and health, setbacks in rights and social inclusion threaten to undermine broader social progress. Between 2012 and 2023, Rights and Voice fell by 7.7 points, while Inclusive Society fell by 5.4 points.

Download image
Emerging G20 economies such as China (65.22), Indonesia (66.86), and South Africa (71.51) made substantial gains in overall social progress between 1990 and 2023, although improvements were uneven across the Index's dimensions. Meanwhile, progress in some advanced economies has stalled or reversed.

Most notably, the United States (85.55) declined by 1.54 points from its 2015 peak, leaving its 2023 score just 5.46 points above its 1990 level. Its gap with leading G20 performers such as Germany (91.58) and Australia (91.29) widened over the full period.
‍
Download image

Findings

Ready to learn more? Download the findings deck to explore key trends and insights. It’s a great starting point for sparking fresh ideas and kicking off your own research.
Download now
Explore the Index with our interactive tool
Navigate the tool by clicking on the tabs in the menu bar.
Filter the data by year, country, or metric.
‍
From data to impact
Learn more
Decision-makers & researchers rely on the Index to drive impactful decisions.
Get Premium Access
Take your work to the next level with the Social Progress Index Time Series Premium Access

Get detailed country profiles, regional data visualizations, world maps and indicator-level insights.

Back your decisions with the most rigorous social progress data available.

The user-friendly tool presents complex data in an accessible format.

Download the full dataset for deeper analysis.

Why Choose Premium Access for My Work?

Government
‍

1. Informed policies: Leverage a detailed breakdown of social and environmental performance across 196 countries to identify patterns and inform evidence-based policy decisions.
‍
2. Identify trends: Government leaders can identify trends and patterns in social progress within their country or region over more than three decades. This information can help them identify areas where progress has been made, areas that are stagnant, and areas that are in decline.

‍3. Customized analysis: Access the premium tool for in-depth analysis, allowing you to tailor results by country, region, year, and specific social progress measures that matter most to your goals.

Learn more
Student, Academic, Research Institute, University Library

1.Research excellence: Get premium access to enrich your academic research on social and environmental progress and contribute to the global conversation on societal wellbeing.

2. Curriculum enhancement: Enrich your educational programs or research by integrating real-world data and examples from the tool.

3.Student empowerment: Provide students with hands-on learning experiences by allowing them to explore and analyze the Index for their projects and research.

Learn more
Business, Entrepreneur, Investor
‍

1. Strategic insights for growth: Harness the power of data to inform your decisions. Identify opportunities and potential risks. We go beyond traditional metrics, offering a fresh perspective on how businesses can contribute to social progress.

‍2. Enhance stakeholder engagement: Deepen your connection with stakeholders by demonstrating a commitment to holistic progress. This empowers you to align corporate objectives with social impact and build stronger relationships.

‍3. Tailor solutions for wellbeing: Premium access offers additional visualizations, allowing you to tailor insights to your corporate priorities. Explore the data that matters most to your business, whether it's health, education, personal rights and more.

Learn more
Non-profits, Foundations or Personal Use
‍

1. Impactful advocacy: Use it to advocate for change by understanding the specific social and environmental challenges communities face globally.

2. Community-centric solutions: Tailor interventions by having full access to the tool and visualizing more than 50 social and environmental progress measures such as health, education, rights and more.

3. Data-driven storytelling and insights: Communicate your work effectively with data and stories that resonate with your audience.

Learn more

The best part?
‍
Experience the SPI Platform’s intuitive design, offering easy navigation through rich visualizations. Plus, access the full dataset for an enhanced exploration. Should you need assistance, our support team is always ready to help!

Get Premium Access

Methodology & Framework

The Social Progress Index Time Series evaluates a range of 52 indicators across three dimensions— Basic Needs, Foundations of Wellbeing and Opportunity, going beyond economic metrics.

Methodology Summary

The Index helps decision-makers identify performance gaps and deploy targeted strategies to improve quality of life. See our full methodology to learn more about how the framework is built.
Download now

Explore premium access or build a customized tool that covers your needs.

Learn more