ABSTRACT
The Index of Social Progress consists of eleven subindexes containing a total of forty-four social, economic, physical, and political components. One of the most interesting and controversial problems in dealing with development is how to assess the level of development attained by individual countries; an associated problem is the assessment of comparative changes or progress among countries through time. Income is based on per capita gross national product (GNP). The use of the GNP as an indicator of income or development has often been criticized because of inaccuracy and incompleteness of coverage. The overall index is the mean of the four basic factors; that is, all several factors are given equal weight in determining the total overall index of socioeconomic development. Economic restructuring became a key word in development during the 1980s, but the process of economic transformation, of course, had been going on for quite some time before then.
