HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX (HDI)

Human Development Index (HDI)

Human Development Index (HDI)

Introduction

Human Development Index is a tool developed by UNDP to illustrate the total life quality in a country. Factors like GDP per capita, life expectancy, the quality of the education and the literacy rate are used to create a value where 1.0 is the highest possible score. With the calculation methods used, a country cannot score 0.0. (United Nations Development Programme 2008)

Factors like safety, climate and culture are not included, although they can have decisive impact on the quality of life felt by the inhabitants of a country.

Altogether 177 countries were included in the measuring in 2002. Among the 10 top countries, 6 were European. The other countries were Australia, United States, Canada and Japan. Among the 10 bottom countries, all were African.

Countries with an index above 0.8 are called "High human development", countries with indexes between 0.799 and 0.5 are called "Medium human development", while countries below 0.5 are called "Low human development". (Sharps 2008)

The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used by the United Nations and various nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to categorize and rank countries by their level of development. HDI scores can help prioritize a country's needs, as well as assist in helping organizations target problem areas such as education and longevity.

Human Development Index in USA

Human development index is going beyond the income in USA. Each year since 1990 the Human Development Report Office has published the human development index (HDI) which looks beyond GDP to a broader definition of well-being. The HDI provides a composite measure of three dimensions of human development: living a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy), being educated (measured by adult literacy and enrolment at the primary, secondary and tertiary level) and having a decent standard of living (measured by purchasing power parity, PPP, income). The index is not in any sense a comprehensive measure of human development. It does not, for example, include important indicators such as gender or income inequality and more difficult to measure indicators like respect for human rights and political freedoms. What it does provide is a broadened prism for viewing human progress and the complex relationship between income and well-being. (Joshi 2008)

United States ranks 18th out of 108 countries in the GEM, with a value of 0.769.

NB Changes in HDI values and ranks between two reports result from revisions to data for each of the HDI's three components (4 indicators) as well as real changes in the level of human development in different countries. The data revisions this year - especially of the GDP per capita (PPP US$) series - have resulted in more substantial apparent movements in the HDI than is normally the case between successive publications. For these reasons, HDI values and rankings are not comparable across different publications. (International Monetary Fund 2000)

The obvious need for a more significant indicator has been filled since 1990 by the Human Development Index created by the UNDP (United Nation's Development ...