"We are not just another income measure like GDP, our index is based on measuring real things that matter to real people"
- Michael Green, executive director of the Social Progress Imperative
Even despite recent poor economic performance, Britain was ranked as the second most advanced country in the world in a new measure designed to rival GDP, according to the index developed by a team of U.S. economists. The U.K. outperformed the world's largest economy, as well as Germany, France and Japan for overall progress in living standards, infrastructure and individual opportunity. Sweden ranked first, the U.K. stood at the second place, while Switzerland occupied place number three. This index was designed as an alternative to traditional measures, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is based on purely economic standards. The Social Progress Index measures the extent, to which countries provide for the social and environmental needs of their citizens.
"If you think of Britain's self-image as straddling the best of Europe and the best of America that is what seems to be coming across in the data," said Michael Green, executive director of the Social Progress Imperative.
He went on: "We are not just another income measure like GDP, our index is based on measuring real things that matter to real people. GDP is pretty good at measuring social progress, the results broadly correlate with rising income but it is not the whole answer and we have got to start to talk about other things as well."
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