Ukraine rises 17 positions in social progress ranking

In 2020, Ukraine rose from 80th to 63rd place in the world ranking of the social progress index among 163 countries with an index of 73.38 points against 66.97 in 2019.

This is evidenced by the data of the Social Progress Index, Interfax-Ukraine reports.

According to the study, the average value of the index among all studied countries is 64.24 points. Last year, the group of countries with a very high standard of living and moderately high quality of life decreased from 104 to 71.

"Separately, I'd like to note that among 15 countries with a similar level of GDP per capita in terms of purchasing power parity, Ukraine ranked fifth in terms of this index," said Minister of Social Policy Maryna Lazebna.

Besides, the Minister noted the high assessment of Ukraine in the areas of equal access of women and men to secondary and higher education, protection of women's property rights, ensuring equal opportunities for participation in political life for women and men.

"Ukraine has also demonstrated high rates of employment for vulnerable groups, coverage of general secondary education, availability of affordable mobile communications, affordable electricity," the head of the Ministry of Social Policy added.

However, Ukraine showed significantly worse results compared to other countries in terms of life expectancy after 60 years (117th place among 163 countries), and lags in several other indicators.

"According to the results of the index developers, in Ukraine, there's a high inequality in the ability to influence political decisions depending on the level of the socio-economic situation, corruption, high levels of greenhouse gas emissions, high mortality due to air pollution, high premature mortality from non-communicable diseases," Lazebna said.

Note

The Social Progress Index, developed by professors at Harvard Business School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, measures the degree to which countries meet the social and environmental needs of citizens on 54 indicators. The study is published annually by the nonprofit Social Progress Imperative.