Comparing Nations in the World for Human Development (HDI):

Read about Aadhaar Card

India has included 2 more words in her constitution. These are Socialism and secularism The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistical tool used to measure a country's overall achievement in its social and economic dimensions. Detailed information on this is available here. http://www.arab-hdr.org/publications/contents/2002/ch1-e.pdf Social and economic dimensions of a country are based on the health of people, their level of education and their standard of living. Calculation of the index combines four major indicators: life expectancy for health, expected years of schooling, mean of years of schooling for education and Gross National Income per capita for standard of living. HDI is one of the best tools to keep track of the level of development of a country, as it combines all major social, secular and economic indicators, responsible for economic development. Every year UNDP ranks countries based on the HDI report included in their annual report. It is found that some countries with lots of income do not always spend that money in ways that create high life expectancies or education levels. Mathematical expression for estimating the index is as under.

This method is in use since year 2010. (Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index )

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)

2. Education Index (EI)

2.1 Mean Years of Schooling Index (MYSI) ^[7]

2.2 Expected Years of Schooling Index (EYSI) ^[8]

3. Income Index (II)

Finally, the HDI is the geometric mean of the previous three normalized indices:

LE: Life expectancy at birth
MYS: Mean years of schooling (Years that a 25-year-old person or older has spent in schools)
EYS: Expected years of schooling (Years that a 5-year-old child will spend with his education in his whole life)
GNIpc: Gross national income at purchasing power parity per capita

During election campaign propaganda 2014 most of the politicians and their parties talked and are talking about development of India. All of them claimed/claim that they are the people who can develop India. Probably none knows that HDI is more or less at the same level since 1996 till date. Neither NDA could significantly improve this index nor UPA. Some of the politicians and capitalists are exceptions though.

The disaggregated HDI

A country's overall index can conceal the fact that different groups within the country have very different levels of human development. Disaggregated HDIs are estimated for each of the separate groups. Virtually each of the groups is treated as a separate country. It is up to the nation to define such groups. Generally these are based on income, geographical/administrative regions, urban/rural residence, gender, ethnicity etc. Using disaggregated HDIs at the national and sub-national levels helps highlighting the significant disparities and gaps among regions, sexes, urban/rural areas and ethnic groups. This analysis makes it possible to guide policy and action to address gaps and inequalities.

Disparities may already be well known, but the HDI can reveal that even more starkly. Desegregation by social group or region can also enable local community groups to press for more resources as well as to force accountability on local elected representatives. HDI can easily be used as a tool for participatory development. Disaggregated HDIs have been used extensively for analysis since their inception.

Adjusting the HDI for inequalities

In 2010, the Inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI) was introduced. The IHDI is the HDI adjusted for inequalities in the distribution of achievements in each of the three dimensions of the HDI (health, education and income). The IHDI will be equal to the HDI value when there is no inequality, but falls below the HDI value as inequality rises. ‘Loss’ in potential human development due to inequality is measured by the difference between the HDI and the IHDI. This can be expressed as a percentage also. In 2012 the IHDI was calculated for 132 countries. Results indicated that United States suffered a loss of around 12% when its HDI value was adjusted for inequalities. This pushed USA down by 13 places in the rank.

Country-specific HDIs

HDI appearing in the global HDRs can be tailored so that additional country-specific priorities /problems sensitive to a country's level of development are included in the calculation. HDI adjustments should utilise the methods of weighting and normalising while using maximum and minimum values. This would give country specific index. In addition, indicator-specific weights can be tailored such that they reflect national policy priorities.

Additional adjustments to the HDI could involve expanding the breadth of existing component indices. The life expectancy category could be adjusted to reflect under-five or maternal mortality rates. Income component could be adjusted to reflect unemployment. Educational component can be adjusted to include the number of students enrolled in fields of study important for the country.

HDI is unable to monitor changes for a short period. The reason is two of its components viz life expectancy and mean years of schooling don’t change in a short period. Such a limitation may be overcome by estimating a different index for short time goals. Rate of employment, Percent of population with access to health services, Daily caloric intake as a percentage of recommended intakes etc. may be used in for estimating short term indicators. Countries may choose components that reflect their priorities/problems sensitive to their development level, so as to improve usefulness and versatility of the HDI. Care should be taken while adjusting the HDI to reflect additional concerns viz commitment to data integrity and rigorous attention to statistical protocol.

National wealth has the potential to expand people's choices. The manner in which countries spend their wealth is decisive and not the wealth itself. An excessive obsession with the creation of material wealth can obscure the ultimate objective of enriching human lives. In inter-country comparisons, income variations tend to explain much less. Variation in life expectancy or in infant and child mortality cannot be understood from per capita income or per capita income cannot indicate differences in adult educational.

Monitory wealth is not an ideal gauge of human development. HDI offers a powerful alternative to GDP and GNI for measuring the relative socio-economic progress. HDI comparison of countries, regions or ethnic groups within a country highlights material wealth vis-à-vis human development. A negative gap within a country implies the potential of redistributing resources for levelling up various groups. In order to see United Nations Human Development Reports 2013 click here. 

Norway, Australia and the United States lead the rankings of 187 countries in year 2013 Human Development Index (HDI). Conflict-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo and drought-stricken Niger have the lowest ranking in the HDI published by the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) 2013.

India has been ranked 136 among 187 countries evaluated for HDI. On the positive side, India’s HDI value went up from 0.345 to 0.554 between 1980 and 2012. This works up to 61% and on an average annual increase of 1.5%.

HDI of 0.554 is below average. Countries in the medium human development group HDI is 0.64, and for in South Asia it is 0.558. Indians can boast only to Pakistan and Bangladesh with HDI rank at 146.

Elections are in progress in India (April-May 2014). This is the time statistical survey to determine HDI for various groups should be completed. Some groups of politicians also should be formed such as ministers, members of houses, defeated in election and party workers. Their HDI should be compared with business tycoons and common man. Politicians who claim that they can develop India should prove that India levels up in the HDI scale within 60 months. The results should be recorded every year. If they succeed they need no money to contest elections. Voters would follow politician even during elections. 

The only happiness is our growth of HDI is reasonably improving.