Human Development Index
thumb|550px|World map indicating the categories of Human Development Index by country (based on 2013 data, published on July 24, 2014).

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators, which are used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. A country scores higher HDI when the lifespan is higher, the education level is higher, the GDP per capita is higher, the fertility rate is lower, and the inflation rate is lower. The HDI was developed by the Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq working alongside  Indian economist Amartya Sen, often framed in terms of whether people are able to "be" and "do" desirable things in their life, and was published by the United Nations Development Programme.

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)."

 Origins 

100px|thumb|upright|Mahbub ul Haq
100px|thumb|upright|Amartya Sen

The origins of the HDI are found in the annual Human Development Reports produced by the Human Development Reports 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. Working alongside Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, they worked on capabilities and functions that provided the underlying conceptual framework. Haq was sure that a simple composite measure of human development was needed in order 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. Sen initially opposed this idea, but he was helped by Haq in order to develop the Index. Sen was worried that it was going to be difficult to capture the full complexity of human capabilities in a single index, but Haq insisted that only a single number would shift the immediate attention of politicians from economic to human well-being.

 Dimensions and calculation 

 New method (2010 Report onwards) 
Published on 4 November 2010 (and updated on 10 June 2011), the 2010 Human Development Report (HDI) combines 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 Report) 
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|280px|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 ⅓ 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.

 2015 Human Development Report 

The 2015 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme was released on December 14, 2015, and calculates HDI values based on estimates for 2014. Below is the list of the "very high human development" countries:http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdr_2015_statistical_annex.pdfThe UN does not calculate the HDI of Macau. The government of Macau calculates its own HDI.Macau in Figures, 2015Taiwan's government calculated its HDI to be 0.882, based on 2010 new methodology of UNDP. 

  = increase.
  = steady.
  = decrease.

 The number in brackets represents the number of ranks the country has climbed (up or down) relative to the ranking in 2014 report.

 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      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   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

 2014 Human Development Report
The 2014 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme was released on July 24, 2014, and calculates HDI values based on estimates for 2013. Below is the list of the "very high human development" countries:http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdr14-report-en-1.pdf

  = increase.
  = steady.
  = decrease.

 The number in brackets represents the number of ranks the country has climbed (up or down) relative to the ranking in 2013 report.

 Rank Country 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

 Inequality-adjusted HDI 

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 changes in rank are not relative to the HDI list above, but are according to the source (p. 168) calculated with the exclusion of countries which are missing IHDI data.

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.

 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.

 2013 Human Development Report 

The 2013 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Program was released on March 14, 2013, and calculates HDI values based on estimates for 2012. Below is the list of the "very high human development" countries:http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/14/hdr2013_en_complete.pdf

Note: The green arrows (), red arrows (), and blue dashes () represent changes in rank when compared to the new 2012 data HDI for 2011 – published in the 2012 report.

 Inequality-adjusted HDI 

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 changes in rank are not relative to the HDI list above, but are according to the source (p. 152) calculated with the exclusion of countries which are missing IHDI data.

Countries in the top quartile of HDI ("very high human development" group) with a missing IHDI: New Zealand, Chile, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Liechtenstein, Brunei, Andorra, Qatar, Barbados, United Arab Emirates, and Seychelles.

 2011 Human Development Report 

The 2011 Human Development Report was released on 2 November 2011, and calculated HDI values based on estimates for 2011. Below is the list of the "very high human development" countries (equal to the top quartile):

Note: The green arrows (), red arrows (), and blue dashes () represent changes in rank when compared to the 2011 HDI data for 2010 – published in the 2011 report (p. 131).

 Inequality-adjusted HDI 

Below is a list of countries in the top quartile by Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI). According to the report, the 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 when compared to the 2011 HDI list, for countries listed in both rankings.

Countries in the top quartile of HDI ("very high human development" group) with a missing IHDI include: New Zealand, Liechtenstein, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, Andorra, Brunei, Malta, Qatar, Bahrain, Chile, Argentina and Barbados.

 Countries not included 

Some countries were not included for various reasons, mainly the unavailability of certain crucial data. The following United Nations Member States were not included in the 2011 report:International Human Rights Development Indicators, UNDP North Korea, Marshall Islands, Monaco, Nauru, San Marino, South Sudan, Somalia and Tuvalu.

 2010 Human Development Report 

The 2010 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Program was released on November 4, 2010, and calculates HDI values based on estimates for 2010. Below is the list of the "very high human development" countries:

Note: The green arrows (), red arrows (), and blue dashes () represent changes in rank when compared to the 2009 HDI published in the 2010 report.

 Inequality-adjusted HDI 

The 2010 Human Development Report was the first to calculate an Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI), which factors in inequalities in the three basic dimensions of human development (income, life expectancy, and education). Below is a list of countries in the top quartile by IHDI:

Note: The green arrows (), red arrows (), and blue dashes () represent changes in rank when compared to the 2010 HDI list, for countries listed in both rankings.

Countries in the top quartile of HDI ("very high human development" group) with a missing IHDI include: New Zealand, Liechtenstein, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Republic of China (Taiwan), Andorra, United Arab Emirates, Malta, Brunei, Qatar, Bahrain and Barbados.

 Countries not included 
Some countries were not included for various reasons, mainly the unavailability of certain crucial data. The following United Nations Member States were not included in the 2010 report. Cuba lodged a formal protest at its lack of inclusion. The UNDP explained that Cuba had been excluded due to the lack of an "internationally reported figure for Cuba's Gross National Income adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity". All other indicators for Cuba were available, and reported by the UNDP, but the lack of one indicator meant that no ranking could be attributed to the country."Samoa left out of UNDP index", Samoa Observer, January 22, 2010Cuba country profile, UNDP The situation has been addressed and, in later years, Cuba has ranked as a High Human Development country.

Africa
 
 
 

Americas
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Asia
 
 
 
 
 

Europe
 
 
 

Oceania
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 2009 Human Development Report 
The 2009 Human Development Report by the UNDP was released on October 5, 2009, and covers the period up to 2007. It was titled "Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development". The top countries by HDI were grouped in a new category called "very high human development". The report refers to these countries as developed countries. They are:

 Countries not included 
Some countries were not included for various reasons, such as being a non-UN member or unable or unwilling to provide the necessary data at the time of publication. Besides the states with limited recognition, the following states were also not included.

Africa
 
 

Asia
 
 

Europe
 
 
 

Oceania
 
 
 
 
 
 

 2008 statistical update 
A new index was released on December 18, 2008. This so-called "statistical update" covered the period up to 2006 and was published without an accompanying Human Development Report. The update is relevant due to newly released estimates of purchasing power parities (PPP), implying substantial adjustments for many countries, resulting in changes in HDI values and, in many cases, HDI ranks.

 Countries not included 
Some countries were not included for various reasons, such as being a non-UN member, unable, or unwilling to provide the necessary data at the time of publication. Besides the states with limited recognition, the following states were also not included.

Africa
 
 

Asia
 
 
 

Europe
 
 
 
 
 

Oceania
 
 
 
 
 
 

 2007/2008 Human Development Report 
The Human Development Report for 2007/2008 was launched in Brasília, Brazil, on November 27, 2007. Its focus was on "Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world." Most of the data used for the report are derived largely from 2005 or earlier, thus indicating an HDI for 2005. Not all UN member states choose to or are able to provide the necessary statistics.

The report showed a small increase in world HDI in comparison with last year's report. This rise was fueled by a general improvement in the developing world, especially of the least developed countries group. This marked improvement at the bottom was offset with a decrease in HDI of high income countries.

A HDI below 0.5 is considered to represent "low development". All 22 countries in that category are located in Africa. The highest-scoring Sub-Saharan countries, Gabon and South Africa, are ranked 119th and 121st, respectively. Nine countries departed from this category this year and joined the "medium development" group.

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. Seven countries were promoted to this category this year, leaving the "medium development" group: Albania, Belarus, Brazil, Libya, Macedonia, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

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.

 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 twelve times, Canada eight times, followed by Japan which has been ranked highest three times. Iceland has been ranked highest twice.

 In each original report 
The year represents when the report was published. In parentheses is the year for which the index was calculated.

 Criticism 
thumb|HDI vs. ecological footprint
The Human Development Index has been criticized on a number of grounds including alleged ideological biases towards egalitarianism and so-called "Western models of development", failure to include any ecological considerations, 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.

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 - they claim - 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 January 6, 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 continuous updating of the human development categories whenever formula or data revisions take place.

 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
 Brazilian states
 Chilean regions
 Chinese administrative divisions
 European countries
 Indian states
 Indonesian provinces
 Latin American countries
 Mexican states
 Pakistani districts
 Philippine provinces
 Russian federal subjects
 South African provinces
 U.S. states (American Human Development Report (AHDR))
 Venezuelan states

 See also 

 Indices

 List of countries by Human Development Index
 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)
 Gross National Well-being (GNW)
 Happy Planet Index (HPI)
 Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI)
 Legatum Prosperity Index
 Living planet index
 Multidimensional Poverty Index
 OECD Better Life Index BLI
 Social Progress Index
 Where-to-be-born Index

 Other
 Economic development
 Ethics of care
 Happiness economics
 Human Development and Capability Association
 Human Poverty Index
 International development
 Least developed country
 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
 Right to an adequate standard of living
 Subjective life satisfaction
 Sustainable development
 Sustainable Development Goals

 Notes and references 

 External links 

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

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

sah:HDI