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The 'Human Development Index' ('HDI') is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, and standard of living for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare. It is used to determine and indicate whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country and also to measure the impact of economic policies on quality of life.^[1] The index was developed in 1990 by Indian Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen, Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq, with help from Gustav Ranis of Yale University and Lord Meghnad Desai of the London School of Economics and has been used since then by the United Nations Development Programme in its annual Human Development Report. Described by Sen as a "vulgar measure", because of its limitations, it nonetheless focuses attention on aspects of development more sensible and useful than the per capita income measure it supplanted, and is a pathway for serious researchers into the wide variety of more detailed measures contained in the Human Development Reports.
The HDI measures the average achievements in a country in three basic dimensions of human development:

★ A long and healthy life, as measured by life expectancy at birth.

★ Knowledge, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weight) and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrolment ratio (with one-third weight).

★ A decent standard of living, as measured by the log of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) in USD.
Each year, UN member states are listed and ranked according to these measures. Those high on the list often advertise it (e.g., Jean Chrétien, Former Prime Minister of Canada [1]), as a means of attracting talented immigrants (economically, individual capital) or discouraging emigration.
An alternative measure, focusing on the amount of poverty in a country, is the Human Poverty Index.

Contents

Methodology

Examples

2006 report

Top thirty countries (HDI range from 0.965 down to 0.885)

Top/bottom three countries by region

Countries not included

Past top countries

References

External links

Methodology

In general to transform a raw variable, say $x$, into a unit-free index between 0 and 1 (which allows different indices to be added together), the following formula is used:

★ $x$-index =
ight)} {maxleft(x
ight)-minleft(x
ight)}
where $minleft(x$
ight) and $maxleft(x$
ight) are the lowest and highest values the variable $x$ can attain, respectively.
The Human Development Index (HDI) then represents the average of the following three general indices:

★ Life Expectancy Index =

★ Education Index =

★
★ Adult Literacy Index (ALI) =

★
★ Gross Enrolment Index (GEI) =

★ GDP Index =
ight) - logleft(100
ight)} {logleft(40000
ight) - logleft(100
ight)}
LE: Life expectancy at birth

ALR: Adult literacy rate (ages 15 and older)

CGER: Combined gross enrolment ratio for primary, secondary and tertiary schools

GDPpc: GDP per capita at PPP in USD
UNDP has created a technical note on the definition of the HDI (see links below).

Examples

{| border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" align="center" style="border-collapse:collapse;"
|+ ''Calculation examples of the indices.''
|-
! style="background: #ffdead;" | Index
! style="background: #efefef;" | Measure
! style="background: #efefef;" | Minimum value
! style="background: #efefef;" | Maximum value
! style="background: #efefef;" | Formula
|-
! style="background: #ffdead;" | Longevity
| Life expectancy at birth (LE)
| align="center" | 25 yrs
| align="center" | 85 yrs
|
|-
! style="background: #ffdead;" rowspan="2" | Education
| Literacy rate (LR)
| align="center" | 0%
| align="center" | 100%
| rowspan="2" |
|-
| Combined gross enrolment ratio (CGER)
| align="center" | 0%
| align="center" | 100%
|-
! style="background: #ffdead;" | GDP
| GDP per capita (PPP)
| align="center" | 100 USD

| align="center" | 40,000 USD

|
|}

2006 report

Main articles: List of countries by Human Development Index


The report for 2006 was launched in Cape Town, South Africa, on November 9, 2006. Its focus was on "power, poverty and the global water crisis." [2] Most of the data used for the report are derived largely from 2004 or earlier, thus indicating an HDI for 2004. Not all UN member states choose to or are able to provide the necessary statistics.
The report showed a stagnation in world HDI, as the continued improvement of developed countries was offset by a general decline of the developing world. Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia showed an important decline in HDI, in comparison with last year's report. Other developing regions showed little to no improvement.
A HDI below 0.5 is considered to represent ''low development'' and 29 of the 31 countries in that category are located in Africa, with the exceptions of Haiti and Yemen. The bottom ten countries are all in Africa. The highest-scoring Sub-Saharan countries, Equatorial Guinea and South Africa, are ranked 120th and 121st, respectively (with a shared HDI of 0.653).
A HDI of 0.8 or more is considered to represent ''high development''. This includes all developed countries, such as those in North America, Western Europe, Oceania, and Eastern Asia, as well as some developing countries in Eastern Europe, Central and South America, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and the oil-rich Arabian Peninsula.
On the following table, green arrows () represent an increase in ranking over the previous study, while red arrows () represent a decrease in ranking. They are followed by the number of spaces they moved. Blue dashes () represent a nation that did not move in the rankings since the previous study.

Top thirty countries (HDI range from 0.965 down to 0.885)

0.965 () 0.960 () 0.957 () 0.956 ( 4) 0.951 ( 1) 0.950 ( 1) 0.949 ( 4) 0.948 ( 2) 0.947 ( 2) 0.947 ( 2)

0.947 ( 2) 0.945 ( 8) 0.945 ( 4) 0.944 ( 3) 0.943 ( 1) 0.942 () 0.940 ( 1) 0.940 ( 3) 0.938 ( 2) 0.936 ( 1)

0.932 ( 1) 0.927 () 0.927 () 0.921 () 0.916 () 0.912 ( 2) 0.910 ( 1) 0.904 ( 1) 0.903 () 0.885 ( 1)

Top/bottom three countries by region

{| cellpadding=8 cellspacing=0
|-
|'Africa'

047. 0.842 ( 4)

063. 0.800 ( 2)

064. 0.798 ( 6)

...

175. 0.338 ( 1)

176. 0.335 ()

177. 0.311 ()
|'Asia'

007. 0.949 ( 4)

022. SAR 0.927 ()

023. 0.927 ()

...

138. 0.527 ( 2)

142. 0.512 ( 2)

150. 0.492 ( 1)
|'Europe'

001. 0.965 ()

002. 0.960 ()

004. 0.956 ( 4)

...

097. 0.743 ( 3)

099. 0.736 ( 2)

114. 0.694 ( 1)
|-
|'North/Central America'

006. 0.950 ( 1)

008. 0.948 ( 2)

031. 0.879 ( 1)

...

117. 0.683 ( 1)

118. 0.673 ( 1)

154. 0.482 ( 1)
|'Oceania'

003. 0.957 ()

020. 0.936 ( 1)

055. 0.815 ( 1)

...

119. 0.670 ( 1)

128. 0.592 ()

139. 0.523 ( 2)
|'South America'

036. 0.863 ()

038. 0.859 ( 1)

043. 0.851 ( 3)

...

091. 0.757 ( 3)

103. 0.725 ( 4)

115. 0.692 ( 2)
|}

Countries not included

The following countries or territories are not ranked in the 2006 Human Development Index, for being unable or unwilling to provide the necessary data, or for not being recognized as states by the United Nations at the time of publication.

'Africa' ★ ★ ★

'Americas' ★

'Asia' ★ ★ ★ (SAR)[2] ★ ★ [3]

'Europe' ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

'Oceania' ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Past top countries

The number one ranked country in each year of the index. Canada is the highest ranking country, staying at the top ten times, and is followed by Norway, which stayed at the top six times.

★ 2006 – ★ 2005 – ★ 2004 – ★ 2003 – ★ 2002 –

★ 2001 – ★ 2000 – ★ 1999 – ★ 1998 – ★ 1997 –

★ 1996 – ★ 1995 – ★ 1994 – ★ 1993 – ★ 1992 –

★ 1991 – ★ 1990 – ★ 1985 – ★ 1980 –

References

1. Davies, A. and G. Quinlivan (2006), A Panel Data Analysis of the Impact of Trade on Human Development, Journal of Socioeconomics
2. See list of countries by HDI.

3. See list of countries by HDI.

External links

★ Human Development Report Office

★

★

★

★ List of countries by HDI at NationMaster.com

★ Human Development Map