The 2020 SERF Index

The 2020 SERF Index Update is now an outdated version of the SERF Index.  The data files are provided here for the convenience of researchers who may be currently using these older versions of the data.  The 2020 SERF Index Update provides SERF Index scores for 11 separate years; 2007 through 2017 and can be downloaded here or at the SERF Index data tab.  The 2020 Update incorporates several changes beyond those in the 2019 Update. First, to increase the number of low- and middle- income countries with data, the net primary school enrolment rate has been substituted for the adjusted primary school enrolment rate.  While the latter is more accurate since it incorporates primary aged students enrolled in secondary school, the difference in values between the two indicators is extremely small.  Second, given improvement in data availability, we have substituted the adult (15-60) survival rate for the age 65 survival rate as our indicator of adult health.  As a result, our indicators of adult and child health are fully distinct.  Third, we have been able to include an indicator of housing affordability among our right to housing indicators using the High-Income assessment standard.  This indicator is the percentage of the poorest population quintile that is paying less than 40% of their disposable income on rent or mortgage. Finally, this year we also include scores separately for males and females as relevant to the extent the underlying data are available. This year, we also introduce a new related performance measure, the excess income metric, that measures a country’s efficiency by comparing the country’s actual income with the minimum income required to enable the observed enjoyment level.

The low- and middle-income International SERF Index covers close to 90 countries (the exact number depending on the year) and up to 195 countries for the Component Right Indices (the exact number depending on the right and the year).  The high-income International SERF Index covering all five rights can be calculated for 27 countries in 2015, 2016 and 2017.  The high-income component right indices can be calculated for between 34 and 99 countries in 2017, depending on the right.  Both the low- and middle-income and the high-income SERF Index are comparable across the countries and years for which each is available. The series for each year uses the most recently available data for each country as of the specified year when computing the index.  However, because the surveys providing many of the indicators are not conducted annually, the data used for each year’s series are not always unique. For example, in the case of the Right to Education Index score for Cameroon, the 2016 and 2017 series use data on the net primary school enrolment rate in 2016. If the most recently available data on an indicator is more than 10 years prior, the score for that right aspect is recorded as “missing”. Because both the low- and middle-income SERF Index and high-income SERF Index are calculated for all countries (low- and middle- income as well as high-income countries) with available data, researchers can evaluate countries with the available data on either assessment standard.  The 2020 update data sets including the individual indicator performance scores as well as the Right Indices are incorporated into the downloadable excel file and can be accessed below, as can the Technical Note for the 2020 Update.

Download the 2020 Update of the International SERF Index data
Download the SERF Index Technical Note