The 2023 SERF Index

The 2023 SERF Index Update is now an outdated version of the SERF Index.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 2023 SERF Index Update extends the series to cover a full 30 years—1990 through 2020 and can be downloaded below or at the SERF Index data tab.  As in the case of the 2022 Update, the 2023 Update includes sex disaggregated data for both assessment standards on the right to education, the right to food and two components of the right to health.

Both the low- and middle-income and the high-income variants of the International SERF Index are calculated for all countries with the requisite data and the series are comparable across countries and years but are not comparable across high-income versus low-and middle-income assessment standards. Researchers can evaluate countries with the available data on either assessment standard.

Beyond extending the time frame, the 2023 Update incorporates several additional changes:

• First, our low-and middle-assessment standard Right to Education score now incorporates an educational quality score. Specifically, we use the “Harmonized Test Score” from The World Bank’s Human Capital Project to calculate the SERF educational quality score.
• Second, our high-income assessment standard Right to Health score now uses the survival rate of adults from age 60 to 80 (instead of age 15 to 60) to reflect adult health given its greater relevance to and variation among high income countries.
• Third, given changes in data availability, rather than using the “net primary school enrollment rate” and “net secondary school enrollment rate”, we use the “total net primary school enrollment rate” and “total net upper secondary school enrollment rate” to calculate the access component of our Right to Education scores.
• Finally, The World Bank’s poverty data are now keyed to 2017 International Dollars (2017 PPP$) rather than 2011 International Dollars so the low- and middle-income poverty line used in calculating our Right to Work score has changed accordingly to $3.65 per day (2017 PPP$).

 

When computing a country’s score on a right or right aspect, the most recently available data on a given right enjoyment indicator (and the per capita income data for the corresponding year) is used. The surveys providing many of the indicators on enjoyment of rights are not conducted annually, so the data used for each year are not always unique. For example, in the case of the Right to Food score for the Central African Republic, the 2019 and 2020 series use data on the percent of children that are not stunted in 2019. The maximum ‘look-back’ period is 10 years.  That is, 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”, and so too is the score for the corresponding Component Right Index and variant of the International SERF Index. In the case of data covering 1990 to 1999, the maximum lookback period is shorter, specifically, it is the number of years back to 1990.

The 2023 Update has scores for up to 195 countries:

• For the low- and middle-income assessment standard, the SERF Index is available for up to 88 countries in any given year (the exact number depending on the year), while the Component Right Indices are available for up to 194 countries (the exact number depending on the right and year).
• For the high-income assessment standard, the SERF Index is available for up to 28 countries in any given year (the exact number depending on the year), while the Component right Indices are available for up to 148 countries (the exact number depending on the right and year).

 

The 2023 Update data sets including the individual indicator performance scores as well as the Component Right Indices are incorporated into the downloadable excel files and can be accessed both below and on the 2023 data tab.

Download International SERF Index Technical Note 2023 Update

 

This year we include several versions of the download files to accommodate different types of users.   For those wanting to view the data for a particular country or year of concern, or do simple excel analyses, the following file is most appropriate to use.

Download 2023 International SERF Index data for advocates

 

For researchers wanting to do more advanced analysis, we have included two separate files an “xlxs” and a “dta” file.  The first three rows of the .xlxs file variant for researchers provide 3 different variable name options, each onb a separate row, so researchers can readily delete the ones with variable names that do not meet the length restrictions of the program they are using.  This file also contains a “ReadMe” sheet that provides information on variable naming conventions.  The .dta file is optimized for use with Stata, but does not include the “ReadMe” sheet providing information on variable naming conventions. Those using the .dta file will want to see the “ReadMe” sheet on the .xlxs  file variant for researchers.

Download 2023 International SERF Index data for researchers

Download 2023 International SERF Index data for researchers (.dta file)