Expert Opinion on Detecting Priority Indicators for Constructing Iranian Social Welfare Index: A Delphi Study

Indicator and indexes of social welfare measures changes resulting from the implementation of social policies, and due to the importance of identifying this indexes, this study evaluate expert opinion on choice of priority social welfare dimensions and indicators for Iran.

25 members of multi-professional expert group completed a structured questionnaire in two rounds, rating their agreement with proposed items on a scale from 0-10 and annotating with additional comments. The median and range were calculated to give a statistical average of the experts’ ratings.

in view of experts, employment (mean 9.52 (0-10)), economic (mean 9.30 (0-10)), social insurance (mean 8.76 (0-10)), health (mean 8.42 (0-10)), education (mean 7.45 (0-10)), housing (mean 6.65 (0-10)) were the most important dimensions of social welfare, and, Unemployment rate (14 votes), social insurance coverage (10 votes), life expectancy at birth (7votes), Home ownership rate (7 votes), literacy rate for people over 6 years(6 votes), School enrollment rate (5 votes), Gini coefficient(5 votes), Inflation rate (4votes) and GDP per capita (3 votes) were the most important indicators of social welfare.

Comparing the findings with similar studies indicates priority of objective and material dimensions of social welfare in Iran.