Official Site - The Legatum Prosperity Index is the world's only global assessment of wealth and wellbeing; unlike other studies that rank countries by actual levels of wealth, life satisfaction or development, the Prosperity Index produces rankings based upon the very foundations of prosperity – those factors that help drive economic growth and produce happy citizens over the long term.

Education Sub-Index

Education is a building block for prosperous societies. The Education sub-index measures countries’ performance in three areas: access to education, quality of education, and human capital. As illustrated in the chart below, the variables in the sub-index are categorised into these areas.

The Education sub-index demonstrates how access to education, as measured by levels of educational enrolment rates that are equal for both girls and boys, allows citizens to develop their potential and contribute productively to their society. In addition, it shows that human capital stock, which is measured by the average levels of education in the workforce, is essential for promoting private sector research and development as well as producing useful knowledge for a society. Because of the importance of citizen’s own perceptions of the educational opportunity available to them, the sub-index uses both objective and subjective variables to assess the quality of education in a given country. Global data on education is limited and, therefore, the Education sub-index uses pupil to teacher ratio, as well as measures of citizens’ perception of education, to assess quality.

This sub-index is built on research on economic growth that has found human capital to be an engine for growth, making a case for the non-diminishing effect of education on rising GDP levels. While the relationship between higher levels of education and wellbeing is less clear-cut, research shows that basic education enhances people’s chances in increasing their satisfaction with life.

Sub-Index Rankings