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What is HDI?
The Human Development Index measures a country’s achievement in key human development areas. It goes beyond only income criteria to measure the well-being of individuals. It is released by UNDP.
The index is based on the human development approach, developed by Mahbub ul Haq, anchored in Amartya Sen’s work on human capabilities, and often framed in terms of whether people are able to “be” and “do” desirable things in life.
Calculation of the Human Development Index (HDI)
The calculation of HDI includes 3 major indicators:
- Health- Life expectancy at birth,
- Education- Expected years of schooling and Mean of years of schooling
- Living standard- Gross National Income per capita (PPP $)
The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three dimensions. It does not reflect on inequalities, poverty, human security, empowerment, etc.
The HDI establishes “goalposts”—minimum and maximum values—for each dimension and then compares each nation’s performance to them. This is denoted by a number between 0 and 1. A country’s HDI value increases with its level of human development. UNDP ranks countries based on their HDI reports every year.
India and Human Development Index (HDI) Report 2021 (Latest): Analysis
- The performance of India has declined in various categories compared to other developing countries for the last decade. The global HDI rank of India has slipped from 129 in 2019 to 131 in 2020 and to 132 in 2021-22.
- India’s performance in all three dimensions of HDI 2021-22 is lower than in 2019. Whereas, in other very-high, high, medium and low HDI countries the decrease is found only in the health index.
- India’s per capita income in terms of Purchasing Power Parity has gone down by 5 per cent compared to a 2 per cent increase for the developing countries during 2019 and 2021-22.
- The decline in life expectancy is sharper for India than for developing countries.
- There is a sharp fall in the expected years of schooling and there is also high inequality in different dimensions of development.
- Inequality: According to inequality-adjusted HDI figures, India’s rank has gone down from the 132nd to 134th position. This inequality is higher than the average figures for other countries.
- However, India has seen declining health and education inequalities compared to other low and medium-HDI countries.
- Health inequality: India’s rank in health inequality has improved during 2010-21 which is better than other low and medium HDI countries.
- Still, the inequalities in health and education are more than twice that of the very high and high HDI countries.
Criticism of the Human Development Index (HDI) Report
First, HDI only considers the health, education, and income dimensions of development, ignoring other essential factors like gender equality, social and political rights, environmental sustainability, etc. As a result, it provides an inadequate picture of progress and can cause policymakers to concentrate primarily on the domains covered by the HDI.
Second, HDI is a static measure that does not capture changes in the dimensions of development over time. For instance, a country may have improved in one dimension, such as health, but declined in another, such as education or income, and the HDI would not capture that.
Third, HDI combines health, education, and income using arbitrary weights, which can favour income-based metrics. For instance, a nation with high income but subpar health and education outcomes can nonetheless score highly on the HDI.
Fourth, HDI fails to capture regional diversity within a country. In a country with significant regional disparities, the HDI may give a misleading impression of overall progress.
Fifth, HDI mainly relies on country-provided data, which isn’t always accurate or comparable. Countries may tamper with the data to boost their rankings or make it challenging for unbiased third parties to confirm its accuracy. Moreover, the HDI does not take into account how money, education, and health are distributed within a nation, which could result in an overestimation of improvement.
