World Day of Social Justice
By: V-Dem Staff
Feb 20, 2019
The 20th of February marks the celebration of the World Day of Social Justice. This was established by the United Nations in 2007 in conjunction with the adoption of the Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization by the International Labour Organization. The Declaration aims to render the globalization process more just and equal. The declaration states that social justice and social development are fundamental to ensure successful and efficient integration processes worldwide. The World day of Social Justice hence aims to highlight the importance of providing all people, regardless of social background, sex, gender and nationality, with equal opportunities.
This week we have used V-Dem’s Interactive Maps tool to display the Egalitarian component index in 2017 for all countries in the world. The index is based on the equal protection of resources, rights and freedoms as well as of the equality access to power between social groups. The index is meant to capture the degree to which inequalities, both material and immaterial, result in constraints on citizens’ and groups participation and exercise of formal rights. The scale goes from light blue, representing low equality, to darker blue, which represents higher levels of equality. As we can observe, the greatest concentration of equality can be found in Europe, along with countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea. More than ten years has now passed since the adoption of the ILO Declaration. However, the map clearly illustrates that, as we celebrate the World Day of Social Justice, social inequality remains an elusive goal for many countries worldwide.
To check out more indicators about democracy, use the V-Dem tools at v-dem.net!
