Overview 2024

The SERF Index

Under the International Covenant for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, ICESCR, countries are obligated to devote the maximum of their available resources to progressively realize the substantive rights enumerated in the Covenant.  Thus, measuring the extent to which a country fulfills its economic and social rights obligations under the ICESCR requires considering the level of rights enjoyment in the country relative to the level of the country’s obligation.  The International SERF Index uses socio-economic statistics like school enrollment and child mortality rates to gauge the extent to which rights-holding individuals enjoy each of five economic and social rights—the rights to health, education, food, housing, and work.  A country’s level of obligation is specified using an innovative approach that maps Achievement Possibility Frontiers, APFs. APFs benchmark each country’s level of obligation by relating countries’ per capita GDPs with countries’ performance on socio-economic statistics reflecting economic and social rights enjoyment. The benchmarks reflect the best observed performance of countries over the past several decades at each per capita income level. The basic SERF Index methodology rigorously assesses countries’ fulfillment of their obligations with regard to a specific social and economic right aspect as the percentage of the benchmark level achieved. Country scores on different aspects of a particular right are then averaged into a right index. Country scores on the resultant component right indices reflecting the different substantive rights are then averaged to yield the composite SERF Index.

Country scores on the International SERF Index, as well as the component right indices and right aspects broadly speaking show the percentage of the feasible achievement obtained by the country concerned at that country’s per capita income level.  A low score means a country is not fulfilling the right or right aspect concerned to the extent possible at its per capita income level.  A score of 100% on a right or right aspect does not mean everyone in the country enjoys the right or right aspect; it means the country is doing as well at ensuring the right as the historically best performing countries at that per capita income level; it is meeting its immediate obligation under the ICESCR to fulfill the right to the “maximum of its available resources”.  In the case of a very poor country, the score on the right or right aspect can be quite high even though the enjoyment level of the right or right aspect is quite limited.  A country achieving a score of 100% cannot rest on its laurels.  All countries are obligated to progressively fully realize the rights enumerated in the ICESCR.

Data constraints coupled with the different right challenges in high income countries versus other countries have led to our creation of two separate assessment standards.

  • The “low and middle income” assessment standard holds countries to a basic level of rights fulfillment and is most relevant to low- and middle-income countries.
  • The “high-income” assessment standard holds countries to a higher standard more relevant to the right challenges facing high-income countries.  Both variants of the SERF Index are computed for all countries with the required data. The technical note below describes the construction of both variants of the SERF Index in greater detail.

Download International SERF Index Technical Note 2024 Update

The 2024 SERF Index Update extends the series to cover a full 31 years—1990 through 2021 and can be downloaded below or at the SERF Index data tab.  As in the case of the 2023 Update, the 2024 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. The 2024 Update additionally provides sex disaggregated data for the high-income assessment standard on one aspect of the right to work.

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 2024 Update continues to incorporate the changes made in the 2023 Update.  Specifically,

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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 Burundi, the 2020 and 2021 series use data on the percent of children that are not stunted in 2020. 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” for that country and year, 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 2024 Update has scores for up to 195 countries:

  • For the low- and middle-income assessment standard, the SERF Index is available for up to 87 countries in any given year (the exact number depending on the year), while the Component Right Indices are available for up to 193 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 146 countries (the exact number depending on the right and year).

 

The 2024 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 2024 data tab.

Download 2024 International SERF Index Data

The older SERF Index updates, the 2011 update providing SERF Index scores for 2008, and the 2012 update providing SERF index scores for 2009, the 2013 update providing comparable data covering the 2000 through 2010 period, the 2015 SERF Update providing comparable data for the 2003 to 2012 period, the 2017 SERF Update providing comparable data for 2005 to 2015, the 2019 Update providing comparable data for 2006 to 2016, the 2020 Update providing data for 2007 to 2017, the 2021 Update providing data for 2007 to 2018, the 2022 Update providing data for 2007 to 2019, and the 2023Update providing data for 1990 to 2020 are now outdated. However, they have been retained for the convenience of researchers still working with these older data files, and can be downloaded from the “Data Archives” tab by clicking on the 2011 Downloads, the 2012 Downloads, the 2013 Downloads, the 2015 Downloads, the 2017 Downloads, the 2019 Downloads, the 2020 Downloads, the 2021 Downloads, the 2022 Downloads, and the 2023 Downloads, respectively.

 

 

SERF Index Historical Trends 1970 – 2010

Have countries progressed or regressed in meeting their commitments to fulfill economic and social rights? The SERF Index has been estimated for countries with internationally comparable data spanning four decades. The Core Historical SERF Index covers all countries except the high income OECD countries.  Two variants of the Supplementary Historical SERF index are available, one spanning the four decades and a second incorporating data on the quality of education but only spanning the last two decades because comparable international data on the quality of education are not available for the 1970s and 1980s.

The Core and both variants of the Supplemental Historical SERF Index as well as the component right indices from which they are aggregated can be downloaded through this data portal in both pdf and excel formats.

Download SERF Index Historical Trends

Due to data limitations, some indicators were substituted in constructing the trend data. A technical note describing how the construction of the SERF Index Historical Trends differs from the International SERF index is available through this portal and should be read in conjunction with the Technical Note on the International SERF Index Methodology above.

Two variants of the Supplementary Historical SERF index are available, one spanning the four decades and a second incorporating data on the quality of education but only spanning the last two decades because comparable international data on the quality of education are not available for the 1970s and 1980s.

The Core and both variants of the Supplemental Historical SERF Index as well as the component right indices from which they are aggregated can be downloaded through this data portal in both pdf and excel formats.

Download Technical Note on SERF Index Historical Trends.pdf