Youth Progress Index

Working alongside four organisations Deloitte has developed the inaugural Youth Progress Index, which measures important non-economic factors impacting the quality of life of young people around the world. Young people are our future and this Index sheds light on areas of potential intervention that could improve their social progress.

The Youth Progress Index is one of the first ever concepts for measuring the quality of life of young people independently of economic indicators. The framework is based on the Social Progress Index, which identifies social and environmental elements of the performance of countries “beyond GDP”. As such, the Youth Progress Index can be a significant contribution to the policy debate, including for advocacy, as well as scholarly research, on measuring performance of societies related to youth matters, and defining progress beyond economic achievements. The framework is structured around 3 dimensions, 12 components and 60 distinct indicators. The Dimensions (Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Wellbeing and Opportunity) represent the broad conceptual categories that define social progress, and Components are unique but related concepts that together make up each dimension. The Youth Progress Index ranks 102 countries fully, and a further 52 countries partially.

How did New Zealand fare?

New Zealand ranked 10th overall in the Youth Progress Index, out of 102 countries.

New Zealand scored well in providing opportunity and foundations of wellbeing for young people, with high rankings for corruption (2/154 countries), private property rights (2/136) and air pollution attributable deaths (3/153).

New Zealand’s lowest scores came for suicide (120/154), housing affordability (115/154), youth employment gap (100/119) and greenhouse gas emissions (95/153).

Building family resilience and wellbeing

In Building Family Resilience and Wellbeing, our follow-up report, we canvass the views of New Zealand social sector leaders on what needs to change in the way we provide social services. We look at four key areas for change to enhance social services that are led locally, involve collaboration across multiple agencies and are trust based. We conclude with five recommendations for government focus and investment to improve the lives of families at risk and in crisis.