The first Human Development Report Introduced a new way of measuring development by combining indicators of life expectancy, educational attainment and income into a composite human development index, the HID. The breakthrough for the HID was the creation of a single statistic which was to serve as a frame of reference for both social and economic development. The HID sets a minimum and a maximum for each dimension, called goalposts, and then shows where each country stands in relation to these goalposts, expressed as a value between O and 1 .
The education component of the HID Is now measured by mean of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years and expected years of schooling for children of school entering age. Mean years of schooling is estimated based on educational attainment data from censuses and surveys available in the UNESCO Institute for Statistics database and Barron and Lee (2010) methodology). Expected years of schooling estimates are based on enrolment by age at all levels of education and population of official school age for each level of education.
Expected years of schooling is capped at 18 years. The indicators are normalized using a minimum value of zero and maximum values are set to the actual observed maximum value of mean years of schooling from the countries In the time series, 1980-?2012, that is 13. 3 years estimated for the united States in 2010. Expected years of schooling is maximized by its cap at 18 years. The education index is the geometric mean of two indices. The life expectancy at birth component of the HID is calculated using a minimum value of 20 years and maximum value of 83. 7 years. This Is the observed maximum value of the indicators from the countries in the time series, 1980-2012. Thus, the longevity component for a country where life expectancy birth is 55 years would be 0. 551. For the wealth component, the goalpost for minimum income is $100 (APP) and the maximum Is $87,478 (APP), estimated for Qatar In 2012. The decent standard of living component is measured by IN per capita (APP$) instead of GAP per capita (APP$) The HID uses the logarithm of income, to reflect the diminishing Importance of income with increasing IN.
The scores for the three HID dimension indices are then aggregated Into a composite Index using geometric mean. Refer to the Statistics [614 or more details and the HAD 201 3 Technical Notes English [1 53 KGB. The HID facilitates instructive comparisons of the experiences within and between different countries. To learn more: * Interactive data tools The disaggregated HID One way the use of the human development index has been improved is through disaggregating. A country’s overall index can conceal the fact that different groups within the country have very different levels of human development.
Disaggregated He’d are arrived at by using the data for the HID components pertaining to each of the separate groups; treating each group as if it was a separate country. Such groups may be defined relative to income, geographical or administrative regions, urban/ ‘OFF sub-national levels helps highlight the significant disparities and gaps: among regions, between the sexes, between urban and rural areas and among ethnic groups. The analysis made possible by the use of the disaggregated He’d should help guide policy and action to address gaps and inequalities.
Disparities may already be well known, but the HID can reveal them even more starkly. Disaggregating by social group or region can also enable local community groups to press for more resources s well as to force accountability on local representatives, making the HID a tool for participatory development. Disaggregated He’d have been used extensively for analysis since their inception. Adjusting the HID for inequalities In 2010, the Inequality-adjusted HID (DID) was introduced. The DID is the HID adjusted for inequalities in the distribution of achievements in each of the three dimensions of the HID (health, education and income).
The DID will be equal to the HID value when there is no inequality, but falls below the HID value as inequality rises. The difference between the HID and the DID represents the ‘loss’ in potential unman development due to inequality and can be expressed as a percentage. In 2012 the DID was calculated for 132 countries and the results are telling. For example, United States suffers a loss of more than 12% when its HID value is adjusted for inequalities and moves 13 places down in rank.
Country-specific He’d To reflect country-specific priorities and problems and to be more sensitive to a country’s level of development, the HID appearing in the global Hiders can be tailored so that additional components are included in the calculation. HID adjustments should utilize the methods of weighting and normalization as the original HID, aging use of maximum and minimum values to create an index for the added component. In addition, indicator-specific weights can be tailored such that they reflect national policy priorities.
Additional adjustments to the HID could involve expanding the breadth of existing component indices. For example, the life expectancy category could be adjusted to reflect under-five or maternal mortality rates; the income component could be adjusted to reflect unemployment, incidence of income poverty or the Gin-corrected mean national income; and finally the educational component can be adjusted to include the number of students enrolled n particularly important fields of study, such as the mathematics and sciences.
It is difficult to use the HID to monitor changes in human development in the short-term because two of its components, namely life expectancy and mean years of schooling change slowly. To address this limitation, components that are more sensitive to short-term changes could used for national purposes, possibly under a different name. For example, the rate of employment, the percent of population with access to health services, or the daily caloric intake as a percentage of recommended intake old be used in place of the traditional indicators of the HID.
Thus, the usefulness and versatility of the HID as an analytical tool for HAD at the national and sub-national levels would be enhanced if countries choose components that reflect their priorities and problems and are sensitive to their development levels, rather than rigidly using the three components presented in the HID of the global Hiders. As previously mentioned, when adjusting the HID to reflect additional concerns, a commitment to data integrity and rigorous attention to statistical protocol should always be a elated levels of HID and per capita income National wealth has the potential to expand people’s choices.
However, it may not. The manner in which countries spend their wealth, not the wealth itself, is decisive. Moreover, an excessive obsession with the creation of material wealth can obscure the ultimate objective of enriching human lives. In many instances, countries with higher average incomes have higher average life expectancies, lower rates of infant and child mortality and higher educational attainment and school enrollment, and consequently a higher human development index (HID). But these associations are far from perfect.
In inter-country comparisons, income variations tend to explain not much more than half the variation in life expectancy, or in infant and child mortality. And they explain an even smaller part of the differences in adult educational attainment. Although there is a correlation between material wealth and human well-being, it breaks down in many societies. Many countries have high IN per capita, but low human development indicators and vice versa, while some countries at similar levels of IN per capita have vastly different levels of human development.
Given the imperfect nature of wealth as gauge of human development, the HID offers a powerful alternative to GAP and IN for measuring the relative socio-economic progress at national and sub- national levels. Comparing HID and per capita income ranks of countries, regions or ethnic groups within countries highlights the relationship between their material wealth on the one hand and their human development on the other. A negative gap implies the potential of redirecting resources to Human Development. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about the Human Development Index (HID) What is Human
Development Index? The Human Development Index (HID) is a composite measure of health, education and income that was introduced in the first Human Development Report in 1990 as an alternative to purely economic assessments of national progress, such as GAP growth. It soon became the most widely accepted and cited measure of its kind, and has been adapted for national use by many countries. HID values and rankings in the global Human Development Report are calculated using the latest internationally comparable data from mandated international data providers.
Previous HID values ND rankings are retroactively recalculated using the same updated data sets and current methodologies, and are presented in Table 2 of the Statistical Annex of the 2013 Report. The HID rankings and values in the 2013 Human Development Report cannot therefore be compared directly to HID rankings and values published in previous Human Development Reports. How many countries are included in 2012 HID? The 2012 HID covers 187 countries, the same number as in 2011, while only 169 were included in the 2010 HID.
This major expansion of HID coverage is the result of intensified efforts by the Human Development Report office to work with international data providers and national statistical agencies to obtain required development indicators for the HID which had been unavailable for some countries in previous years. Data constraints precluded HID estimates for member states: Marshall Islands, Monaco, Naira, the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea, San Marino, Somalia, South Sudan and Devalue. Why have you introduced ties in this year HID ranking? Nice the HID was introduced in the first Human Development Report in 1990, for Mounties with HID values that are identical to at least three decimal points. Ireland and Sweden, each with an HID value of 0. 916, are both ranked #7 in the new HID, for example, though the two countries’ HID values diverge when calculated to four or more decimal points. After consultations with many leading experts in development measurement, we concluded that differences beyond a thousandth of a percent are statistically insignificant.
When two countries are so close in their HID values, sharing the same ranking is more accurate and fair. (For more information: Guan and Jovanovich, 2011 : http://had. Undo. Erg/en/reports/global/hydride/papers/ What does HID tell us? The HID 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 HID can also be used to question national policy choices, asking how two countries with the same level of IN per capita can end up with such different human development outcomes.
For example, the Bahamas’ IN per capita is higher than New Sealant’s (by 17%) but life expectancy at birth is about 5 years shorter, mean years of schooling is 4 years shorter and expected years of schooling differ rattle between the two countries, resulting in New Zealand having a much higher HID value than the Bahamas. These striking contrasts can stimulate debate about government policy priorities. Did HID ranking changes for many countries in 2012? The HID rankings did change for a significant number of countries. Since the ranking is relative, the better performance of other countries can explain some of the changes.
However, the most significant factor was the revisions made to the data by data providers. It is for this reason that HID ranks from two reports are not comparable. That is why users of the HAD are advised not to compare the results from different Reports, but to use Table 2 from the latest report, which is based on the latest data available. In this table, HYDRO presents trends in HID using comparable and consistent time series data. The true rank change is expressed in this table as the number of places a country has moved within the index.
A change in rank of O indicates that a country has neither improved nor declined in HID relative to other countries between 2011 and 2012. Where there any significant revisions of the component indicators for 2012? Health (Life expectancy): The UN Population Division revised its life expectancy series biennially, which sometimes creates both increases and decreases for many countries. Just like in 2011, the life expectancy at birth data used for this year’s HID and its trends are from the 2010 Revision of the World Population Prospects.
Education (“Expected years of schooling” and “Mean years of schooling”): Because HYDRO must rely on data from international organizations that provide data which are comparable across countries, the data contained in the 2013 Report may not match population 25 years and older) are similar to those used in the 2011 Report and they refer to year 2010, unless specified differently. Gross national income: Gross national income per capita is expressed in constant purchasing-power-parity (APP$) terms.
The highlighting of internal disparities using HID methodology has prompted constructive policy debates in many countries. Where does data for HID come from? Life expectancy at birth is provided by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs; mean years of schooling are based on UNESCO Institute for Statistics (IIS) educational attainment data and Barron and Lee methodology; expected years of schooling are provided by IIS; and IN per capita by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
For a few countries, mean years of schooling are estimated from nationally representative household surveys, and for few countries IN was obtained from the UN SNAP Main Aggregates database. Many data gaps still exist in even some very basic areas of human development indicators. While actively advocating for the improvement of human development data, as a principle and for practical reasons, the Human Development Report Office does not collect data directly from countries. Why is it important to express per capita IN in purchasing power parity (APP) US dollar?
The HID attempts to make an assessment of 187 diverse countries and areas, with very different price levels. To compare economic statistics across countries, the data must first be converted into a common currency. Unlike market exchange rates, APP rates of exchange allow this conversion to take account of price differences between countries. In that way IN per capita (APP US$) better reflects people’s living standards. In theory, 1 APP dollar (or international dollar) has the same purchasing power in the domestic economy of a country as IIS$I has in the US economy. The new APP values have been used since 2008.
The latest International Comparison Survey ICP, from which the Pops are calculated, was done in 2005; 146 countries took part in the survey, which were 26 more than in the previous one. For further (Section 2). For computation of the 2011 HID, IN is expressed in constant 2005 APP$. This is a change from 2010 when IN was expressed in constant 2008 APP$. A reason was to fully comply with the World Banks and Miff’s standards for expressing the monetary variables in 2005 constant international (APP) dollars. This change had a differential impact on countries but on average the change was minimal. Http://had. Undo. Org/en/statistics/hid/
