Longitudinal Analysis of Social Welfare Situation in Iran (1967–2010) Seyed Hossein Mohaqeqi Kamal 1,2 & Hassan Rafiey 1 & Homeira Sajjadi 3 & Mehdi Rahgozar 4 & Ezatollah Abbasian 5 # Springer International Publishing 2016 Abstract Background The last few decades have seen increased theo- retical and empirical interest in multidimensional measures of social welfare. Objectives The objective of this paper is to introduce social welfare index (SWI) and its trend for Iran. Materials and Methods In this mix method study, Delphi technique was conducted to evaluate expert opinion on choice of priority social welfare indicators (study variables) for Iran in 2013. Then, we have used OECD methodology of constructing composite indicators to develop SWI. SWI as well as its trend have been measured for 1967–2010 (sample size = 44 years). Data were obtained from the Central Bank of Iran, Statistical Center of Iran, and Social Security Organization of Iran. Data were analyzed using SPSS software ver. 20 and exploratory factor analysis, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO), and Bartlett test. Results Based on KMO (0.710), data was adequate for under- lying analysis and result of Bartlett’ s test of sphericity (757.75, df = 45, p < 0.001) imply that correlation matrix of variables was not an identity matrix. Furthermore, the first two factors explained 77.58 % of total variances, together. The results showed that SWI generally has been increasing during the study period. Furthermore, the best and worst performances were devoted to 1971 and 1988, respectively. Conclusions Due to having more and diverse dimensions and indicators, SWI can help as a more realistic measure of social welfare. Keywords Social welfare . Longitudinal study . Factor analysis . Iran Background The concept of social welfare is often described in terms of satisfying human needs (Zarzosa Espina and Somarriba Arechavala 2013). It can be seen as a mental state; it is hap- piness (Ng 2003 ; Pacek and Radcliff 2008 ) or life satisfaction(Diener 1994). Social welfare has also been de- fined as a function of health, education, security, freedom, the environment, leisure, housing, and almost all combina- tions of the above (Islam and Clarke 2002). Evaluation of social welfare is very important so that policy decisions, international comparisons, indicators of poverty, and inequality researches continually refer to assessments of social welfare. As is well known, GDP per capita evaluate current economic activity but relinquish many determinants of social welfare such as the education, housing, health, envi- ronment, and employment (Fleurbaey 2009; Kubiszewski et al. 2013; Machado and Mata 2015). The United Nations has reported the shortfalls of GDP as an index of well-being and has sponsored the idea of human development index (Reig-Martínez 2013). Even though, the indicators related to the human development index represent a remarkable advance towards a multidimensional concept, but * Seyed Hossein Mohaqeqi Kamal hosseinmohaqeq@gmail.com 1 Department of Social Welfare Management, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran 2 Social Welfare Research Center, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran 3 Social Determinant of Health Research Center, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran 4 Department of Biostatistics, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran 5 Department of Economics, Bu Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran Glob Soc Welf DOI 10.1007/s40609-016-0050-8