HDI Concepts

Human Development Index concepts 

India Ranks 135 ( latest Rankas per HDR 2014 ) in UNDP's HDR Report 2013 out of 187 countries 

The 2013 Human Development Report presents Human Development Index (HDI) values and ranks for 187 countries and UN-recognized territories, along with the Inequality-adjusted HDI for 132 countries, the Gender Inequality Index for 148 countries, and the Multidimensional Poverty Index for 104 countries. Country rankings and values in the annual Human Development Index (HDI) are kept under strict embargo until the global launch and worldwide electronic release of the Human Development Report.

Human Development Index (HDI) 

HDI is a summary measure for assessing long-term progress in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living.

A long and healthy life is measured by life expectancy. 

Access to knowledge is measured by:

 i) mean years of schooling for the adult population, which is the average number of years of education received in a life-time by people aged 25 years and older

 ii) expected years of schooling for children of school-entrance age, which is the total number of years of schooling a child of school-entrance age can expect to receive if prevailing patterns of age-specific enrolment rates stay the same throughout the child's life.

 Standard of living is measured by Gross National Income (GNI) per capita expressed in constant 2005 international dollars converted using purchasing power parity (PPP) rates. 

To ensure as much cross-country comparability as possible, the HDI is based primarily on international data from the United Nations Population Division, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics (UIS) and the World Bank.

Inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI)  

The HDI is an average measure of basic human development achievements in a country. Like all averages, the HDI masks inequality in the distribution of human development across the population at the country level. The 2010 HDR introduced the Inequality Adjusted HDI (IHDI), which takes into account inequality in all three dimensions of the HDI by ‘discounting’ each dimension’s average value according to its level of inequality. The HDI can be viewed as an index of 'potential' human development and the IHDI as an index of actual human development. The ‘loss’ in potential human development due to inequality is given by the difference between the HDI and the IHDI, and can be expressed as a percentage.

India’s HDI for 2012 is 0.554. However, when the value is discounted for inequality, the HDI falls to 0.392, a loss of 29.3 percent due to inequality in the distribution of the dimension indices. Bangladesh and Pakistan, show losses due to inequality of 27.4 percent and 30.9 percent respectively. The average loss due to inequality for medium HDI countries is 24.2 percent and for South Asia it is 29.1 percent.

Gender Inequality Index (GII) 

The Gender Inequality Index (GII) reflects gender-based inequalities in three dimensions – REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH , EMPOWERMENT & ECONOMIC ACTIVITY 

Reproductive health is measured by maternal mortality and adolescent fertility rates

Empowerment is measured by the share of parliamentary seats held by each gender and attainment at Secondary and higher education by each gender.

Economic activity is measured by the labour market participation rate for each gender. 

The GII replaced the previous Gender related Development Index and Gender Empowerment Index. The GII shows the loss in human development due to inequality between female and male achievements in the three GII dimensions.

Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)

The 2010 HDR introduced the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which identifies multiple deprivations in the same households in education, health and standard of living. 

The education and health dimensions are based on two indicators each while the standard of living dimension is based on six indicators. All of the indicators needed to construct the MPI for a household are taken from the same household survey. 

The indicators are weighted, and the deprivation scores are computed for each household in the survey. A cut-off of 33.3 percent, which is the equivalent of one-third of the weighted indicators, is used to distinguish between the poor and nonpoor. If the household deprivation score is 33.3 percent or greater, that household (and everyone in it) is multidimensionally poor. Households with a deprivation score greater than or equal to 20 percent but less than 33.3 percent are vulnerable to or at risk of becoming multidimensionally poor.