Since the 1960s, a series of social and environmental problems have accompanied the rise of a global economy and the rapid development of science and technology.

While humanity has made enormous progress, a number of issues persist, such as the yawning wealth gap and pollution. People have shifted attention from economic to social development and from an overreliance on macroeconomic indicators, such as the GDP, to the consideration of social indicators in order to achieve sustainable development through new ideas.

The use of social indicators originated in developed countries as a way to measure modernization, especially economic growth and technological development. So far, the development of social indicator research in the West has undergone three stages.
The first phase of social indicator research lasted from the 1950s to the end of the 1970s, highlighting holistic social analysis at the macro level. 

During the 1980s, the second phase focused on such subjective indicators as human life quality and experience.

Since 2000, sustainable development and issues facing developing countries have become new hot topics.

China’s studies of social indicators can also be divided into three stages. In the first stage, which lasted from 1980 to 1989, scholars conducted research on life quality indicators while laying the foundations for a comprehensive social indicator system.

In the second stage, which lasted throughout the following decade, the subjective and objective indicator systems of life quality continued to be improved while increasing attention was paid to building a sustainable development indicator system.

After 2000, focus shifted to studies of social indicators, leading to a large quantity of research achievements. The indicator systems of sustainable development, scientific development, comprehensive development and harmonious development have become the mainstream of the research. Meanwhile, research on life quality indicators has been improving.

Great progress has been made in China’s studies of social indicators over the past three decades. A sound statistical system of social indicators has been formed. However, compared with developed countries, China falls short in the field of social statistics. Emphasis should be laid on the following aspects while establishing a new type of social indicator system.

Social transition and sustainable development should be stressed. The system of social indicators in developing countries has two characteristics that distinguish it from that of developed countries. For one, priority is given to macroeconomic issues, especially issues of development and social transition.

At the same time, indicators for measuring transition have been built into the social indicator systems of many developing countries, including the economic development indicator, sustainable development indicator, ecological indicator and employment indicator. Thus, China’s new comprehensive social indicators should be established based on the aforementioned two points.

Emphasis should not only be put on results but also on processes. The latter can better reflect social development than the former. It helps explore roots of social problems and grasp the social tendency during the transitional period.

It is necessary to focus on multilevel indicators. Compared with life quality indicators, comprehensive social indicators focus more on holistic development or the macroeconomic level, directly reflecting social problems and depicting the social structure. This coincides with China’s existing national statistical system.

However, in such an indicator system, objective and macroeconomic indicators are usually emphasized while subjective and microeconomic indicators are neglected. Some life quality indicators can thus be incorporated into comprehensive social indicators, forming a multilevel and comprehensive social indicator system.

 

Li Lulu and Kong Guoshu are from the School of Sociology and Population Studies at Renmin University of China.