The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index of the development of human living in economic as well as other measurable terms. The HDI is used as a key indicator to know, understand and compare the development of countries around the world. The HDI was created to emphasize that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone.
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and having a decent standard of living. The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three dimensions.
Of these different dimensions, the health dimension is assessed by life expectancy at birth, the education dimension is measured by the mean of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years and more and expected years of schooling for children of school entering age. The standard of living dimension is measured by gross national income per capita. The scores for the three HDI dimension indices are then aggregated into a composite index using a geometric mean. Refer to Technical notes for more details.
The HDI simplifies and captures only part of what human development entails. It does not reflect on inequalities, poverty, human security, empowerment etc. The HDI can also be used to question national policy choices, asking how two countries with the same level of GNI per capita can end up with different human development outcomes.
Objectives of HDI
As income growth is essential, so are health, education, physical environment and freedom. Human development should embrace human rights, social, economic and political freedoms.
Characteristics of HDI
- Human Development Index (HDI) is a static composite indicator that is used to rank the levels of development among countries.
- It is classified into three components, namely, life expectancy (Years at birth), life expectancy (Expected years of schooling) and Standard of living (GDP/GNI per capita).
- HDI was developed by the United Nations.
- HDI takes into account GDP and adds other factors to measure other aspects of human development: knowledge, longevity and a decent standard of living.
- HDI is comparatively more comprehensive than GDP
