Social Protection Indicator Database System- WELCOME

WELCOME TO SPI DATABASE

The Social Protection Indicator (SPI) was developed for countries in Asia and the Pacific through ADB regional technical assistance projects. The SPI summarizes the extent of social protection in Asia and the Pacific, giving ADB and developing countries better quantitative and qualitative information on social protection programs.

The SPI database was developed as a repository of country-level data on social protection programs in Asia and the Pacific. The main objective is to have an internationally comparable database of government-financed social protection programs including coverage and distributional impact on poverty and gender.

The SPI database is the first comprehensive database that contains annual country-level data on expenditures and beneficiaries of social protection programs. The database also presents the SPI and its disaggregation by program, by depth and breadth, by poor and nonpoor, and by women and men. It also provides the basic socio-economic indicators of countries relevant to the SPI calculation like GDP, population, labor force, and poverty indicators. The graphical presentation of these indicators can also viewed in this database.

The Asian Development Bank in collaboration with the International Labour Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development developed the SPI database. The SPI database is managed by the Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department in coordination with the Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department.

The SPI is updated continuously and new series are added based on emerging demands. This database was last updated in July 2018.

SPI by Social Insurance, Social Assistance, and Labor Market Programs

SPI by Depth and Breadth

SPI by Poor and Non-Poor

SPI by Male and Female

The SPI is a unitary ratio and is based first on dividing total expenditures on social protection by the total potential beneficiaries of social protection. Then this ratio is compared with gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.

In 2016, a number of changes in methodology were introduced starting with the 2011-2013 data. The first is the change in the denominator from one-quarter of GDP per capita to simply the GDP per capita. The term "index" was also changed to "indicator" but still retaining the SPI abbreviation. Disaster relief has been dropped from the computation. Lastly, more consistent estimates of the unemployed and underemployed were used by comparing the estimates provided by the national consultants to the estimates of the "working poor" provided independently by International Labour Organization.

Highlights

The Social Protection Indicator: Assessing Results for Asia

The overall average SPI is equivalent to 3.7% of GDP per capita and social insurance alone accounts for 2.7% of GDP per capita. As a proportion, this represents about 73% of the overall SPI. Social assistance is the second largest program, with an SPI that is 0.9% of GDP per capita. This represents about 24% of the overall SPI, or about one third of that of social insurance. Labor market programs are the smallest social protection program, with an SPI that is only 0.1% of GDP per capita. As a proportion of the overall SPI, labor market programs account for about 3%.

The Social Protection Indicator: Assessing Results for the Pacific

The average SPI for the 13 Pacific island countries was 1.9% of GDP per capita-about half of the 3.7% figure for Asia. As illustrated, the 1.9% average SPI for the region equals the sum of the average SPIs for the three main components: 1.2% of GDP per capita for social insurance, 0.6% of GDP per capita for social assistance, and 0.1% of GDP per capita for labor market programs.