Human Development Index
thumb|World map of countries by Human Development Index categories in increments of 0.050 (based on 2017 data, published on 14 September 2018).
|450x450px

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a  statistic composite index of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators, which are used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. A country scores a higher HDI when the lifespan is higher, the education level is higher, and the gross national income GNI (PPP) per capita is higher.  It was developed by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq, with help from Gustav Ranis of Yale University and Meghnad Desai of the London School of Economics, and was further used to measure a country's development by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s Human Development Report Office.

The 2010 Human Development Report introduced an Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI). While the simple HDI remains useful, it stated that "the IHDI is the actual level of human development (accounting for inequality)", and "the HDI can be viewed as an index of 'potential' human development (or the maximum IHDI that could be achieved if there were no inequality)". The index does not take into account several factors, such as the net wealth per capita or the relative quality of goods in a country. This situation tends to lower the ranking for some of the most advanced countries, such as the G7 members and others.

The index is based on the human development approach, developed by Amartya Sen, often framed in terms of whether people are able to "be" and "do" desirable things in life. Examples include—Being: well fed, sheltered, healthy; Doings: work, education, voting, participating in community life. The freedom of choice is central—someone choosing to be hungry (as during a religious fast) is quite different from someone who is hungry because they cannot afford to buy food, or because the country is in a famine.

 Origins 
upright=0.8|thumb|Mahbub ul Haq
upright=0.8|thumb|Amartya Sen

The origins of the HDI are found in the annual Human Development Reports produced by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). These were devised and launched by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq in 1990, and had the explicit purpose "to shift the focus of development economics from national income accounting to people-centered policies". To produce the Human Development Reports, Mahbub ul Haq formed a group of development economists including Paul Streeten, Frances Stewart, Gustav Ranis, Keith Griffin, Sudhir Anand, and Meghnad Desai. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen utilized Haq's work in his own work on human capabilities. Haq believed that a simple composite measure of human development was needed to convince the public, academics, and politicians that they can and should evaluate development not only by economic advances but also improvements in human well-being.

thumb|upright=3.5|center|The underlying principle behind the Human Development Index.

 Dimensions and calculation 
 New method (2010 Index onwards) 
thumb|World map representing  Human Development Index categories (based on 2017 data, published in 2018).
|400x400px

Published on 4 November 2010 (and updated on 10 June 2011), the 2010 Human Development Report calculated the HDI combining three dimensions:

 A long and healthy life: Life expectancy at birth
 Education index: Mean years of schooling and Expected years of schooling
 A decent standard of living: GNI per capita (PPP US$)
In its 2010 Human Development Report, the UNDP began using a new method of calculating the HDI. The following three indices are used:

1. Life Expectancy Index (LEI) 
LEI is 1 when Life expectancy at birth is 85 and 0 when Life expectancy at birth is 20.
2. Education Index (EI) 
2.1 Mean Years of Schooling Index (MYSI) Mean years of schooling (of adults) (years) is a calculation of the average number of years of education received by people ages 25 and older in their lifetime based on education attainment levels of the population converted into years of schooling based on theoretical duration of each level of education attended. Source: 
Fifteen is the projected maximum of this indicator for 2025.
2.2 Expected Years of Schooling Index (EYSI) (ESYI is a calculation of the number of years a child is expected to attend school, or university, including the years spent on repetition. It is the sum of the age-specific enrollment ratios for primary, secondary, post-secondary non-tertiary and tertiary education and is calculated assuming the prevailing patterns of age-specific enrollment rates were to stay the same throughout the child's life. Expected years of schooling is capped at 18 years. (Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2010). Correspondence on education indicators. March. Montreal.)
Eighteen is equivalent to achieving a master's degree in most countries.
3. Income Index (II) 
II is 1 when GNI per capita is $75,000 and 0 when GNI per capita is $100.
Finally, the HDI is the geometric mean of the previous three normalized indices:

LE: Life expectancy at birth
MYS: Mean years of schooling (i.e. years that a person aged 25 or older has spent in formal education)
EYS: Expected years of schooling (i.e. total expected years of schooling for children under 18 years of age)
GNIpc: Gross national income at purchasing power parity per capita

 Old method (before 2010 Index) 
The HDI combined three dimensions last used in its 2009 Report:

 Life expectancy at birth, as an index of population health and longevity to HDI 
 Knowledge and education, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weighting) and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (with one-third weighting).
 Standard of living, as indicated by the natural logarithm of gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity.

thumb|right|upright=1.25|HDI trends between 1975 and 2004

This methodology was used by the UNDP until their 2011 report.

The formula defining the HDI is promulgated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).Definition, Calculator, etc. at UNDP site   In general, to transform a raw variable, say , into a unit-free index between 0 and 1 (which allows different indices to be added together), the following formula is used:

 

where  and  are the lowest and highest values the variable  can attain, respectively.

The Human Development Index (HDI) then represents the uniformly weighted sum with  contributed by each of the following factor indices:

 Life Expectancy Index = 
 Education Index = 
 Adult Literacy Index (ALI) = 
 Gross Enrollment Index (GEI) = 
 GDP = 

Other organizations/companies may include other factors, such as infant mortality, which produces a different HDI.

 2017 Human Development Index (2018 report) 

The 2018 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme was released on 14 September 2018, and calculates HDI values based on estimates for 2017. Below is the list of the "very high human development" countries:

  = increase.
  = steady.
  = decrease.

 Rank Country/Territory HDI 2017 rankings Change in rank from previous year 2017 HDI Change from previous year  1      0.953   0.002  2      0.944   0.001  3      0.939    0.001  4      0.938   0.004  5    (1)   0.936   0.002  6      0.935   0.002  7   (1)   0.933   0.003  7      0.933   0.001  9   (1)    0.932   0.002 10      0.931   0.003 11   (1)    0.929   0.001 12      0.926   0.004 13   (1)    0.924   0.002 14      0.922   0.002 15       0.920  0.002 16      0.917  0.002 17   (1)    0.916   0.001 17   (1)    0.916   0.001 19      0.909   0.002 20      0.908   0.002 21      0.904   0.001 22      0.903   0.001 22   (1)    0.903   0.003 24      0.901   0.002 25      0.896   0.002 26      0.891   0.002 27      0.888   0.003 28      0.880   0.002 29      0.878   0.003 30      0.871   0.003

 Rank Country HDI 2017 rankings Change in rank from previous year 2017  rankings Change from previous year 31   (1)     0.870   0.002 32      0.869   0.002 33   (1)    0.865   0.005 34   (1)    0.863   0.001 35      0.858   0.002 35   (1)    0.858   0.003 37   (1)    0.856   0.001 38   (1)    0.855   0.002 39   (1)    0.853   0.001 39   (1)    0.853   0.001 41   (2)    0.847   0.003 41   (1)    0.847   0.002 43   (2)    0.846   44      0.843   0.001 45      0.838   0.003 46      0.831   0.003 47      0.825   0.003 48   (1)    0.821   0.001 49      0.816   0.001 50      0.814  0.004 51   (1)    0.813   0.003 52      0.811   0.004 53   (1)    0.808   0.003 54   (1)    0.807   0.001 55   (1)    0.804   0.002 56   (1)    0.803   0.001 57      0.802   0.003 58   (1)    0.800   0.001 58   (2)    0.800   0.003

 Inequality-adjusted HDI (2018 report) 

The Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI) is a "measure of the average level of human development of people in a society once inequality is taken into account".

The rankings are not relative to the HDI list above due to the exclusion of countries which are missing IHDI data (p. 30).

Countries in the top quartile of HDI ("very high human development" group) with a missing IHDI: Liechtenstein, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Andorra, Qatar, Brunei, Bahrain, Oman, Bahamas, Kuwait and Malaysia.

 2015 Human Development Index (2016 report) 

The 2016 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme was released on 21 March 2017, and calculates HDI values based on estimates for 2015. Below is the list of the "very high human development" countries:

  = increase.
  = steady.
  = decrease.

 Rank Country or region Score 2016 estimates for 2015 Change in rank from previous year 2016 estimates for 2015 Change from previous year  1      0.949   0.001  2      0.939    0.002  2      0.939   0.001  4   (2)    0.926   0.002  5   (1)    0.925   0.002  5   (6)    0.925   0.013  7   (1)    0.924   0.001  8      0.923   0.003  9   (7)    0.921   0.002 10   (1)    0.920   0.001 10   (2)    0.920   0.002 12      0.917   0.001 13   (4)    0.915   0.002 14   (1)    0.913   0.004 15   (1)    0.912   0.001 16   (4)    0.909   0.003 17   (3)    0.903   0.001 18      0.901   0.002 19      0.899   0.001 20      0.898   0.002 21   (1)    0.897   0.003 22   (1)    0.896   0.001 23      0.895   0.002 24      0.893   0.001 25   (2)    0.892   0.005 26      0.890   0.002 27   (1)    0.887   0.006 28      0.878   0.003 29      0.866   0.001 30   (10)    0.865   0.020 31   (1)    0.865   0.002 32      0.858   0.001 33   (1)    0.856   0.002 33   (2)    0.856   0.003 33      0.856   0.001 36      0.855   0.003 37      0.848   0.002 38   (4)    0.847   0.002 38      0.847   0.002 41      0.843   0.002 42      0.840  0.004 43      0.836   0.002 44      0.830   0.002 45   (5)    0.827   0.001 45   (1)    0.827   0.004 47   (1)    0.824   0.001 48   (1)    0.807  0.003 49   (1)    0.804   0.001 50   (1)    0.802   0.004 51   (1)    0.800   0.001

 Inequality-adjusted HDI (2016 report)

The Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI) is a "measure of the average level of human development of people in a society once inequality is taken into account".

The rankings are not relative to the HDI list above due to the exclusion of countries which are missing IHDI data (p. 206).

Countries in the top quartile of HDI ("very high human development" group) with a missing IHDI: Andorra, Bahrain, Brunei, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and United Arab Emirates.

 2014 Human Development Index (2015 report) 

The 2015 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme was released on 14 December 2015, and calculates HDI values based on estimates for 2014. Below is the list of the "very high human development" countries:The UN does not calculate the HDI of Macau. The government of Macau calculates its own HDI.Macau in Figures, 2015 Taiwan's government calculated its HDI to be 0.882, based on 2010 new methodology of UNDP. 

  = increase.
  = steady.
  = decrease.

 Rank Country Score 2015 estimates for 2014 Change in rank from previous year 2015 estimates for 2014 Change from previous year  1      0.944   0.002  2      0.935    0.002  3      0.930   0.002  4      0.923    5      0.922   0.002  6      0.916   0.001  6   (2)    0.916   0.004  8   (1)    0.915   0.002  9   (1)    0.913   0.001  9   (1)    0.913   0.002 11   (2)    0.912   0.003 12      0.910   0.002 13      0.908   0.001 14      0.907   0.002 14   (1)    0.907   0.005 16      0.899   17      0.898   0.003 18      0.894   0.001 18      0.894  The UN does not calculate the HDI of Macau. The government of Macau calculates its own HDI. Macau in Figures, 2016  19      0.892   0.002 20   (1)    0.891   0.001 21      0.890   0.002 22      0.888   0.001 23      0.885   0.001 24      0.883   0.001 25      0.882  The UN does not recognize the Republic of China (Taiwan) as a sovereign state. The HDI report does not include Taiwan as part of the People's Republic of China when calculating China's figures. Taiwan's government calculated its HDI to be 0.882, based on 2010 new methodology of UNDP.  26      0.880   0.001 27      0.876   0.002 28      0.873   29      0.870   0.002 30      0.865   0.002 31      0.861   0.002 32      0.856   0.004 33      0.850   33   (1)    0.850   0.001 34      0.845   0.001 35   (1)    0.844   0.005 36   (1)    0.843   0.003 37      0.839   0.002 37      0.839   0.002 39      0.837   0.001 40      0.836   0.003 41   (1)    0.835   0.002 42      0.832   0.002 43      0.830   0.002 44      0.828   0.003 45      0.824   0.003 46   (1)    0.819   0.003 47   (1)    0.818   0.001 48   (1)    0.816   49      0.802   0.001

 Inequality-adjusted HDI  (2015 report)

The Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI) is a "measure of the average level of human development of people in a society once inequality is taken into account".

Note: The green arrows (), red arrows (), and blue dashes () represent changes in rank. The rankings are not relative to the HDI list above due to the exclusion of countries which are missing IHDI data (p. 216).

Countries in the top quartile of HDI ("very high human development" group) with a missing IHDI: Andorra, Bahrain, Brunei, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and United Arab Emirates.

 2013 Human Development Index (2014 report) 
The 2014 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme was released on 24 July 2014 and calculates HDI values based on estimates for 2013. Below is the list of the "very high human development" countries or regions:

  = increase.
  = steady.
  = decrease.

 Rank Country or Region HDI New 2014 estimates for 2013 Change in rank between 2014 report and 2013 report New 2014 estimates for 2013 Change compared between 2014 report and 2013 report  1      0.944   0.011  2      0.933    0.002  3      0.917   0.001  4      0.915    5      0.914   0.002  6      0.911    7      0.910   0.002  8      0.902   0.001  9   (3)    0.901   0.002 10      0.900   11   (3)    0.899   0.017 12   (1)    0.898   0.001 13      0.895   0.002 14      0.892   0.002 14      0.892    15      0.891   0.002 15   (1)    0.891   0.003 17   (1)    0.890   0.002 18   (2)    0.889   0.001 19      0.888   0.002 20      0.884   21      0.882   22      0.881   0.001 22      0.881   0.001 22      0.881   0.001 23      0.879   24      0.874   25      0.872    26      0.869    27      0.861    28      0.853   0.001 29      0.852   30      0.851   0.001 31      0.845   0.003 32      0.840   0.001 33      0.836   0.003  34   (1)    0.834   0.003 34   (1)    0.834   0.001 35      0.830   35   (1)    0.830   0.001 36      0.829   0.002 37      0.827   0.002 38   (1)    0.822   0.003 38      0.822   39      0.818   0.001 40      0.815   0.002 40      0.815   0.002 41   (2)    0.814   0.001 42      0.812   43      0.810   0.002 44      0.808   0.002

 Countries not included 

Some countries were not included for various reasons, primarily due to the lack of necessary data. The following United Nations Member States were not included in the 2014 report: North Korea, Marshall Islands, Monaco, Nauru, San Marino, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Tuvalu.

 Inequality-adjusted HDI (2014 report) 

The Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI) is a "measure of the average level of human development of people in a society once inequality is taken into account".

Note: The green arrows (), red arrows (), and blue dashes () represent changes in rank. The rankings are not relative to the HDI list above due to the exclusion of countries which are missing IHDI data (p. 168).

Countries in the top quartile of HDI ("very high human development" group) with a missing IHDI: New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Liechtenstein, Brunei, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Andorra, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Cuba, and Kuwait.

 Past top countries 
The list below displays the top-ranked country from each year of the Human Development Index. Norway has been ranked the highest fourteen times, Canada eight times, and Japan three times. Iceland has been ranked highest twice.

 In each original HDI 
The year represents the time period from which the statistics for the index were derived. In parentheses is the year when the report was published.

 Geographical coverage 
The HDI has extended its geographical coverage: David Hastings, of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, published a report geographically extending the HDI to 230+ economies, whereas the UNDP HDI for 2009 enumerates 182 economies and coverage for the 2010 HDI dropped to 169 countries. Information Note linked to data

 Country/region specific HDI lists 

 African countries
 Argentine provinces
 Australian states
 Brazilian states
 Canadian provinces and territories
 Chilean regions
 Chinese administrative divisions
 Ethiopian regions
 European countries
 German states
 Indian states
 Indonesian provinces
 Iranian provinces
 Iraqi governorates
 Italian regions
 Japanese prefectures
 Latin American countries
 Mexican states
 Pakistani districts
 Philippine provinces
 Russian federal subjects
 South African provinces
 Spanish communities
UK countries and regions of England
U.S. states (American Human Development Report (AHDR))
 Venezuelan states
 World, regional (Sub-national HDI by GDL)

 Criticism 
thumb|HDI vs. ecological footprint
The Human Development Index has been criticized on a number of grounds, including alleged lack of consideration of technological development or contributions to the human civilization, focusing exclusively on national performance and ranking, lack of attention to development from a global perspective, measurement error of the underlying statistics, and on the UNDP's changes in formula which can lead to severe misclassification in the categorisation of "low", "medium", "high" or "very high" human development countries.

 Sources of data error 
Economists Hendrik Wolff, Howard Chong and Maximilian Auffhammer discuss the HDI from the perspective of data error in the underlying health, education and income statistics used to construct the HDI. They identified three sources of data error which are due to (i) data updating, (ii) formula revisions and (iii) thresholds to classify a country's development status and conclude that 11%, 21% and 34% of all countries can be interpreted as currently misclassified in the development bins due to the three sources of data error, respectively. The authors suggest that the United Nations should discontinue the practice of classifying countries into development bins because: the cut-off values seem arbitrary, can provide incentives for strategic behavior in reporting official statistics, and have the potential to misguide politicians, investors, charity donors and the public who use the HDI at large.

In 2010, the UNDP reacted to the criticism and updated the thresholds to classify nations as low, medium, and high human development countries. In a comment to The Economist in early January 2011, the Human Development Report Office responded to a 6 January 2011 article in the magazine which discusses the Wolff et al. paper. The Human Development Report Office states that they undertook a systematic revision of the methods used for the calculation of the HDI, and that the new methodology directly addresses the critique by Wolff et al. in that it generates a system for continuously updating the human-development categories whenever formula or data revisions take place.

In 2013, Salvatore Monni and Alessandro Spaventa emphasized that in the debate of GDP versus HDI, it is often forgotten that these are both external indicators that prioritize different benchmarks upon which the quantification of societal welfare can be predicated. The larger question is whether it is possible to shift the focus of policy from a battle between competing paradigms to a mechanism for eliciting information on well-being directly from the population.

 See also 

Indices

 Bhutan GNH Index
 Broad measures of economic progress
 Green national product
 Green gross domestic product (Green GDP)
 Gender Inequality Index
 Gender-related Development Index
 Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)
 Global Peace Index (GPI)
 Gross National Well-being (GNW)
 Happy Planet Index (HPI)
 Human Poverty Index
 Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI)
 Legatum Prosperity Index
 List of countries by Human Development Index
 Living planet index
 Multidimensional Poverty Index
 Rule of Law Index
 OECD Better Life Index (BLI)
 Social Progress Index
 Where-to-be-born Index
 World Happiness Report

Other

 Economic development
 Ethics of care
Developing country
 Happiness economics
 Human Development and Capability Association
 International development
 List of countries by percentage of population living in poverty
 Right to an adequate standard of living
 Subjective life satisfaction
 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

 References 

 External links 

 Human Development Index
 Human Development Tools and Rankings
  
 New demographic datasets by 'Human Development Index (HDI)’
 An independent HDI covering 232 countries, formulated along the lines of the traditional (pre-2010) approach.

 
Category:Development economics
Category:Environmental economics
Category:International rankings
Category:Science and technology in India
Category:Science and technology in Pakistan

sah:HDI