RT presents the Social Well-Being Index, a new way to measure whether societies can sustain themselves, protect life, and remain cohesive
What makes a prosperous nation?
The West has one answer: money.
For decades, Western institutions have measured things like GDP, sustainability and ‘human development’ to show which countries are doing well in the world.
But do these things indicate what is truly important for humans as a species and a society? Heavily skewed towards individual consumerism, they downplay tradition and paint the growth of human population as a problem – to the point where family is seen as an atavism and ‘child-free’ appears to be the lifestyle of the progressive future.
Such views are very clearly filtered through the prism of the modern liberal West – so much so that they serve as soft-power tool for promoting Western ‘values’. If your country scores high on a Western index of well-being or development, it doesn’t really mean it’s ‘doing well’ by itself – it simply means it is aligned with a certain world-view.
The emerging new multipolar world order needs new benchmarks, which is why RT is introducing the Social Well-Being Index – a new and unique way to measure the status of nations, which takes into account the most fundamental and objective criteria of societal health to create a deeper understanding of global development trends.
Why we need the Social Well-Being Index
In recent years, the topic of the sustainability of nations has emerged from the oblivion into which it had sunk decades earlier, during the era of the confrontation between capitalist and socialist world systems. While Marxism-Leninism didn’t view nations as actors in historical processes, the main alternative to the communist ideology of the USSR and China was Western liberal universalism that emerged in the latter half of the 20th century.
Western capitalist elites won the ideological battle by presenting mass consumption as the solution to social well-being. Emerging victorious, the West dictated the terms of globalization. However, it soon became clear that globalized capitalism, like the global communist movement before it, did not ensure national sovereignty or the sustainability of nations, since this limited the power and profits of the globalist elite.
The influence of this elite is maintained not only through the dollar and NATO’s military strength but also through intellectual dominance—i.e., the promotion of “correct” concepts when it comes to the challenges and goals of human development. This led to the establishment of a binary development paradigm (“Sustainable Development” + “Human Development”), which imposed a universal “environmental” and “humanitarian” agenda on all countries while largely ignoring the sustainability of nations.
The Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the UN shortly after the collapse of the USSR and the Soviet bloc stemmed from the Limits to Growth report published by the Club of Rome. Along with ecological and social responsibility, it promoted the need to reduce the human footprint, presenting population growth in the Global South as a catastrophic “demographic explosion” and recommending population control as a prerequisite for sustainable development. Simultaneously, “green investing” mechanisms were employed to restrain developing nations and reinforce the dominance of the post-industrial West.
In turn, the Oxford concept interpreted human development as individual well-being and freedom of self-expression. Grounded in this concept, the UN’s Human Development Index (HDI) which measures income, life expectancy, and education levels, highlights the inverse correlation between these “human development” indicators and birth rates in different countries. This reinforced the perception that large populations are underdeveloped and hinder both the sustainable progress of humanity and the “human development” of individuals in each country. There was only one notable exception, which we will discuss later.
At first glance, it looks like the HDI evaluates countries, but in fact it evaluates and compares average individuals rather than nations, ethnic groups, or communities within which the Homo sapiens has always existed. This approach implies that human society is merely a collection of rational individuals, and that individuals are primary and society is secondary. By turning individualism into a methodological principle, the HDI not only showcases the West’s economic leadership but also emphasizes its “humanitarian” superiority, thus becoming another tool of global Westernization.
The Western idea of globalization has gained considerable traction beyond the “golden billion” partly because it claimed to promote the spread of Western models of prosperity and individual self-expression. The proliferation and maximization of what has come to be regarded as human well-being and development have led to the following results.
In the West and among those nations that embraced Western individualistic values and consumerist ideals, rising living standards and education levels resulted in a dramatic decline in birth rates, leading to the shrinking and aging of the population. These trends have become so pronounced that they now appear irreversible.
Against the overall demographic decline of the modern world, the country that particularly stands out is the US. It is now the third largest world country in terms of population which keeps growing because of immigration. Apparently, the US isn’t eager to get a taste of its own medicine and implement population control.
However, America’s once-mighty “melting pot” is struggling to cope with the influx of immigrants, and the mass migration of poor, diverse peoples poses a major challenge for the country. In Western Europe, the situation is even more critical – immigrants from different cultures, who were supposed to fill gaps in the labor market left by the declining native population, have only exacerbated the systemic crisis.
This modern “migration period” is intensifying the internal crisis of the Western civilization, which, without any wars or disasters, has encountered unprecedented desocialization. We are witnessing the dismantling of nearly all established social structures, including the family unit, which has long served as the foundation of human society.
Meanwhile, the commonly accepted “human development” and “quality of life” indexes, utilized by international organizations and national governments, fail to recognize these alarming trends and either consciously or unconsciously overlook the fundamental paradox of modern human development: that the cult of maximizing individual well-being and self-expression is undermining human society.
The humanitarian paradox seen above appears to be universal, affecting nearly all countries in today’s globalized world, and particularly the most “advanced” nations, which form the “core” of the modern world system. To illustrate this point, let’s consider some of the wealthiest and most developed Western countries – specifically the United States, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, and Australia – which top the UN Human Development Index. Now, let’s take a closer look at the statistics on murder rates (number of homicides per 100,000 people) and birth rates (total fertility rate) in these supposedly prosperous societies.
The commonly held belief that highly developed Western countries represent a model of social well-being does not reflect reality. The “golden billion” is grappling with deep issues that can no longer be masked by high living standards; in fact, these problems often emerge as the darker side of consumerism. This shows the heavy price paid for prioritizing individual comfort and hedonism as the ultimate goals of human existence. Meanwhile, desocialization trends which are emerging in the West, such as the dissolution of the family and the shift towards child-free lifestyles, are presented as the pinnacle of progress. These ideas are spread through globalization and can be even more destructive in nations undergoing “modernization” than in the West.
In this context, countries that strive to build a new world order urgently need an effective strategic framework to assess the genuine well-being of nations for the purpose of planning and evaluating sustainable development.
The Social Well-Being Index is a tool for measuring and comparing the well-being of historically established human communities: localities, peoples, and nations. In defining human well-being and measuring it, we imply the following fundamental principles.
The highest good for any person is life itself. This fact is universally acknowledged by all religions, civilizations, and cultures. Thus, human well-being as such first of all supposes procreation, or the production of new life. Consequently, any indicators of human development that fail to consider this aspect cannot accurately assess human well-being.
While the production of offspring is an essential part of human well-being, it is not sufficient in itself. Human existence from birth until death inevitably involves suffering. If life itself is the supreme good, then other things that ensure well-being are essentially means of alleviating suffering. Therefore, human well-being implies not only producing new life, but also organizing life in such a way as to help alleviate suffering. What does this mean? To reduce human suffering means to minimize life threatening situations and eliminate extreme forms of human oppression.
It is important to emphasize that procreation and the organization of human life are socially conditioned, which leads us back to Aristotle’s classical definition of humans as social beings. Consequently, human well-being can only be understood in social terms. When the concepts of “social well-being” and “human well-being” are not used interchangeably, the former serves as a broader category that characterizes humanity as Homo sapiens existing within historically and geographically defined societies.
The methodology of the Social Well-Being Index can be summarized in the following key points:
The production of offspring. Biologically, viability is a vital condition for the sustainable development of human communities, and this is ensured by the reproduction of the population. The key indicator of this is the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) – the average number of children born to a woman throughout her lifetime. This must be at least 2.1 to avoid depopulation.
For communities that do not face a danger of overpopulation or a depletion of resources, an optimal TFR is around 3.0. This figure indicates balanced population growth, with the next generation one and a half times larger than the previous one. A stable economy can support overall prosperity at such a demographic growth rate. A TFR above 4.0 is currently typical for the poorest countries of Africa, where economic growth cannot keep up with demographic expansion.
For Russia, given its demographic, geo-economic, and geopolitical realities, a TFR of 3.0 indicates sustainable development, whereas a TFR of 2.1 or lower poses an existential threat.
A TFR index below 2.1 not only signals a declining population but also shows that the idea of the family unit – which naturally produces new life and serves as the fundamental structure of society which teaches the basics of moral social behavior – is in danger. Therefore, the preservation of the family is essential for the reproduction of human society – both in terms of population and civilization. An important indicator of the condition of the family structure in society is the ratio of households comprised of couples with children.
The lack of relevant statistics in many countries prevents us from using the ‘family’ indicator when calculating the global Social Well-Being Index. However, given the significance of assessing the state of the family – especially for nations undergoing a “second demographic transition” – we will conduct ongoing monitoring and use this indicator to compare the situation in different countries and in the regions of Russia where such data is available.
The preservation of life. In order to minimize threats to human life, the natural right to life must be ingrained in the public consciousness, and certain institutional guarantees must ensure this right. This includes accessible and effective healthcare, public safety, and the promotion of a healthy, social lifestyle. These conditions create a culture of life preservation, which can be measured by means of three indicators: low infant mortality rates, high average life expectancy, and low mortality rates from external causes.
Infant mortality rates reflect not only the effectiveness of the healthcare system but also cultural standards, lifestyle choices, and parental responsibility. The key statistical measure is the infant mortality rate (IMR) – the number of deaths of children under the age of one per 1,000 live births.
A crucial indicator of a country’s well-being is the longevity of its residents. Life expectancy at birth serves as the primary measure for comparing countries and calculating the Social Well-Being Index. In many highly developed and prosperous nations, average life expectancy remains stable at 85 years, which apparently represents the maximum human life expectancy at this point.
Another crucial indicator of a culture of life preservation is the mortality rate from external causes (MEC). This refers to premature deaths resulting from socially determined factors such as homicides, suicides, traffic accidents, poisonings, and various infrastructure and technical accidents. These causes, along with the overall rate of premature mortality, reflect the safety of the social environment which is determined by the effectiveness of governmental institutions, social discipline, mutual respect, and solidarity. Conversely, the lack of such safety is driven by social alienation and hostility.
Regrettably, many countries don’t have adequate MEC statistics. Therefore, to calculate the Social Well-Being Index we focused on the homicide rate per 100,000 people. Homicide is one of the most severe crimes, and the number of premeditated murders is a major indicator of societal distress.
Minimization of social oppression. Numerous factors contribute to social oppression, but two stand out in particular: stagnant poverty and the lack of access to education. Stagnant poverty leads to the degradation of human dignity and social disintegration. Meanwhile, limited educational opportunities in childhood exacerbate inequality, entrench social segregation, and prevent children from getting equal and fair opportunities in life. To minimize social oppression, stagnant poverty must be eliminated and children must have free access to education.
In our view, addressing poverty to preserve social unity and health requires not only the eradication of extreme poverty that leaves individuals on the brink of survival but even more importantly, the reduction of the widening gap between the rich and the poor, which serves as a social catalyst for oppression. In order to determine and compare income inequality, which largely determines social unity, we employed the Decile Dispersion Ratio which presents the ratio of the average income of the richest 10 percent of the population by that of the poorest 10 percent.
Children’s education can be assessed through statistics on the enrollment of children in secondary education institutions, derived from national censuses and surveys that reflect the percentage of individuals who have completed secondary education or higher. While this data is far from perfect, it shows education levels in different countries and the corresponding trends.
The Social Well-Being Index has been calculated using the following methodology. First, individual indexes for each country were calculated for each of the following: Birth Rate (BR), Infant Mortality (IMR), Life Expectancy (LE), Homicide Rate (HR), Income Inequality (II), and Children’s Education (CE).
Each index was calculated using the formula: (N-min)/(max-min)*100, where N represents the indicator’s value, max is the upper threshold, and min is the lower threshold. The upper threshold indicates the goal that society should strive for to achieve well-being, while the lower threshold serves as a point of reference that should be avoided as social development progresses.
Threshold values are typically determined based on the maximum and minimum values of each country’s or region’s respective indicators in the current era of human development (i.e. since the start of the 21st century). In cases where negative indicators are extremely high and difficult to verify (such as homicide rates or the income ratios between the top and bottom deciles of the population), the lower threshold is set at double the global average.
Thus, if a country’s or region’s indicator is close to or equal to the minimum, its index will approach zero; conversely, if it is near the maximum, the index will be close to 100. Similar to the methodology used for calculating the Human Development Index, if a country or region exceeds the upper threshold, its social well-being index will still be 100.
Then, the overall Social Well-Being Index (SWB Index) is calculated as the arithmetic mean of the six individual indicators:
SWB Index = (BR Index + IMR Index + LE Index + HR Index + II Index + CE Index) / 6
The Social Well-Being Index has been calculated for 146 countries for which relevant statistics are available.
At first glance, the ranking of countries based on the Social Well-Being Index might come as a surprise. It significantly differs from GDP per capita rankings, which reflect the material prosperity of nations, and from the Human Development Index (HDI) which considers not only income but also longevity and education levels.
Interestingly, there is no major distinction between the GDP per capita rankings and the HDI rankings. The most notable difference between GDP and “human development” occurs only in certain non-Western countries like Qatar, Kuwait, and Brunei, where wealth is heavily dependent on hydrocarbon extraction. Other top performers in the GDP per capita rating tend to score well on the HDI too, and vice versa. This supposedly reinforces the notion that Western and Westernized nations consistently emerge as global leaders in development – a point that proponents of the HDI set out to prove in the first place
The Social Well-Being Index, which takes into account the production of offspring and ranks nations based on their success in preserving human life, providing children with a complete secondary education, and reducing income inequality, paints a very different picture of the world – one that gives a richer, more nuanced and dynamic idea of global development.
To take a more detailed look at RT's Social Well-Being Index, complete with all the statistics, analytical articles, and real-time monitoring of relevant trends from around the world, check out the dedicated website, available in English and in Russian. You can also find a pinned link to it at the very top of our website's front page.