Through the report, data shown for world regions and the world as a whole are population-weighted averages for all countries included in the Clio-Infra database. The coverage of countries typically increases as more country data become available for more recent periods. To ensure more meaningful trends for world regions over time, imputations are made for missing countries.
Depending on the chapter, the data shown in the tables and figures may refer to either individual years or decadal averages. In the latter case, the data are shown as, e.g. “1990s” and the corresponding values are computed as decadal averages of the 1990-1999 period.
Data quality varies across domains, regions and periods: an assessment of data quality is provided in a summary table within each chapter.
Historical data labelled RUS may sometimes refer to data covering the former Soviet Union. When this occurs, it is mentioned in notes to the tables and figures.
Inequality is generally measured using the Gini coefficient. However, the chapter on wealth inequality also relies on measures of the share of wealth accruing to the richest 10% of the population, while the chapter on educational inequality also presents measures based on the standard deviation.
Gini coefficients for world regions are population-weighted averages of Gini coefficients for individual countries. They are hence not interpretable as Gini coefficients computed across all people in the region, irrespectively of the country where they lived.
(..) is used to indicate missing values.
How Was Life? Volume II
New Perspectives on Well-being and Global Inequality since 1820
