The Human Index

Changelog

What changed, and why

Every change that can move a published number is recorded here. Current methodology version: v2.1. See the methodology and data sources.

November 2, 2026

  • Datav2.1

    Survey and report indicators refreshed to their latest editions

    Daily stress: Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2026 (fieldwork 2025), all 25 countries. Screen time: DataReportal Digital 2025 — the last edition with a comparable daily-internet-time measure (Digital 2026 switched to a weekly media sum). Long working hours: OECD How's Life? 2026 (2025 data) for 20 countries. Crude divorce rate: latest official national figures (2020–2025) for 21 countries. Values with no traceable source (long hours for JP, KR, SG, AE, IN; divorce for FR, IN, AR, AE) were removed rather than kept.

    Effect: Canada 15th → 10th (daily stress 47% → 58%); Türkiye 47.0 → 48.3; India 13th → 16th. Top five unchanged.

  • Methodologyv2.1

    Government debt and temperature anomaly now update automatically

    Government debt comes from the IMF World Economic Outlook (completed years only) and temperature anomaly from ERA5 via the World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal (latest year minus the 1951–1980 mean). Both are fetched daily; the previous hand-entered values remain as a cross-check.

    Effect: Temperature anomalies rose for most countries (e.g. Norway 2.0 → 3.3 °C, Türkiye 1.5 → 2.1 °C).

  • Methodologyv2.1

    Source outages no longer move the composite

    When a source fails for a day, its indicators keep their most recent value (up to 7 days) instead of dropping out of the score. Static survey values are never carried this way.

    Effect: Removes the one-day spikes visible in 90-day charts.

  • Newv2.1

    Survey dependence disclosed on every country page

    Each country shows the share of its score that comes from annual surveys and reports, with edition years, and /data-sources lists every edition in use and whether a newer one is due.

  • Newv2.0

    Historical series since 2000, score drivers, embeds, citations, CSV

    Historical structural index (World Bank indicators only, carried forward up to 5 years), per-indicator decomposition of each country’s gap to the average, embeddable country cards, APA/BibTeX citations and CSV downloads (derived scores and openly licensed inputs only).

  • Newv2.0

    Live layer

    A separate, faster score from monthly unemployment and inflation, daily exchange rates, job postings and disaster alerts, each scaled by the country’s own historical volatility (50 = a normal period). Shown next to the composite, not mixed into it.

  • Fixv2.0

    “Last update” no longer implies fresh data

    The label showed when the pipeline last ran, not when the data last changed. It now reads “Pipeline checked”, and a release calendar shows when each source publishes next.