Human Development Index

The origins of the HDI are found in the annual Human Development Reports produced by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). These annual reports 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". He believed that a simple composite measure of human development was needed 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.

File:Human Development Index Underlying Principles.svg

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[[File:Human Development Index regions evolution 1990-2021-fr.svg|thumb|right|upright=1.5|HDI trends between 1990 and 2021

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Published on 4 November 2010 (and updated on 10 June 2011), the 2010 Human Development Report calculated the HDI combining three dimensions:{{cite web |title=Human Development Report 2010 |date=4 November 2010 |publisher=UNDP |url=http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-report-2010 |access-date=15 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222145515/http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-report-2010 |archive-date=22 December 2015 |url-status=live |last1=Nations |first1=United }}{{cite web |title=Technical notes |year=2013 |publisher=UNDP |url=http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdr_2013_en_technotes.pdf |access-date=15 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150616130523/http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdr_2013_en_technotes.pdf |archive-date=16 June 2015 |url-status=live }}

• A long and healthy life: Life expectancy at birth
• Education: Mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling
• A decent standard of living: GNI per capita (PPP international dollars)

In its 2010 Human Development Report, the UNDP began using a new method of calculating the HDI. The following three indices are used:

1.{{anchor|Life Expectancy Index}} Life Expectancy Index (LEI) $=\; \backslash frac\{\backslash textrm\{LE\}\; -\; 20\}\{85-20\}\; =\; \backslash frac\{\backslash textrm\{LE\}\; -\; 20\}\{65\}$

::LEI is equal to 1 when life expectancy at birth is 85 years, and 0 when life expectancy at birth is 20 years.

2. Education Index (EI) $=\; \backslash frac\{\{\backslash textrm\{MYSI\}\; +\; \backslash textrm\{EYSI\}\}\}\; \{2\}${{Cite news|url=http://www.indiastudychannel.com/resources/141517-New-method-of-calculation-of-Human-Development-Index-HDI.aspx|title=New method of calculation of Human Development Index (HDI)|date=1 June 2011|work=India Study Channel|access-date=19 November 2017|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171110171412/http://www.indiastudychannel.com/resources/141517-New-method-of-calculation-of-Human-Development-Index-HDI.aspx|archive-date=10 November 2017|url-status=live}}

:2.1 Mean Years of Schooling Index (MYSI) $=\; \backslash frac\{\backslash textrm\{MYS\}\}\{15\}$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: {{cite journal |last1=Barro |first1=R. J. |author-link=Robert Barro |first2=J.-W. |last2=Lee |year=2010 |title=A New Data Set of Educational Attainment in the World, 1950–2010 |journal=NBER Working Paper No. 15902 |series=Working Paper Series |url=http://www.nber.org/papers/w15902 |doi=10.3386/w15902 |access-date=29 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807191234/http://www.nber.org/papers/w15902 |archive-date=7 August 2011 |url-status=live |doi-access=free }}

:: Fifteen is the projected maximum of this indicator for 2025.

:2.2 Expected Years of Schooling Index (EYSI) $=\; \backslash frac\{\backslash textrm\{EYS\}\}\{18\}$(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) $=\; \backslash frac\{\backslash ln(\backslash textrm\{GNIpc\})\; -\; \backslash ln(100)\}\{\backslash ln(75,000)\; -\; \backslash ln(100)\}\; =\; \backslash frac\{\backslash ln(\backslash textrm\{GNIpc\})\; -\; \backslash ln(100)\}\{\backslash ln(750)\}$

::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:

: $\backslash textrm\{HDI\}\; =\; \backslash sqrt[3]\{\backslash textrm\{LEI\}\backslash cdot\; \backslash textrm\{EI\}\; \backslash cdot\; \backslash textrm\{II\}\}.$

LE: Life expectancy at birth

GNIpc: Gross national income at purchasing power parity per capita

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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.

[[File:Human Development Index trends.svg|thumb|right|upright=1.25|HDI trends between 1975 and 2004

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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).{{Cite web|url=http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/faq/question,68,en.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071220162154/http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/faq/question%2C68%2Cen.html|url-status=dead|title=Definition, Calculator, etc. at UNDP site|archive-date=20 December 2007|access-date=26 May 2020}} In general, to transform a raw variable, say $x$, into a unit-free index between 0 and 1 (which allows different indices to be added together), the following formula is used:

• $x\backslash text\{\; index\}\; =\; \backslash frac\{x\; -\; a\}\{b\; -\; a\}$

where $a$ and $b$ are the lowest and highest values the variable $x$ can attain, respectively.

The Human Development Index (HDI) then represents the uniformly weighted sum with {{frac|1|3}} contributed by each of the following factor indices:

• Life Expectancy Index $=\; \backslash frac\{\backslash text\{LE\}\; -\; 25\}\; \{85-25\}\; =\; \backslash frac\{\backslash text\{LE\}\; -\; 25\}\; \{60\}$
• Education Index $=\; \backslash frac\{2\}\; \{3\}\; \backslash times\; \backslash text\{ALI\}\; +\; \backslash frac\{1\}\; \{3\}\; \backslash times\; \backslash text\{GEI\}$
• Adult Literacy Index (ALI) $=\; \backslash frac\{\backslash text\{ALR\}\; -\; 0\}\; \{100\; -\; 0\}\; =\; \backslash frac\{\backslash text\{ALR\}\}\; \{100\}$
• Gross Enrollment Index (GEI) $=\; \backslash frac\{\backslash text\{CGER\}\; -\; 0\}\; \{100\; -\; 0\}\; =\backslash frac\{\backslash text\{CGER\}\}\; \{100\}$
• GDP $=\; \backslash frac\{\backslash log(\backslash text\{GDPpc\})\; -\; \backslash log(100)\}\; \{\backslash log(40000)\; -\; \backslash log(100)\}\; =\; \backslash frac\{\backslash log(\backslash text\{GDPpc\})\; -\; \backslash log(100)\}\; \{\backslash log(400)\}$

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{{Main|List of countries by Human Development Index}}

{{See also|List of countries by inequality-adjusted Human Development Index}}

[[File:Average annual HDI growth from 2010 to 2023 published in 2025.svg|alt=World map|thumb|Average annual HDI growth from 2010 to 2023 (published in 2025){{legend-col

|thumb size=wide

|{{Legend|#00112B|≥ 1.4%}}

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|{{Legend|#2171b5|0.8%…1%}}

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|{{Legend|#6baed6|0.4%…0.6%}}

|{{Legend|#9ecae1|0.2%…0.4%}}

|{{Legend|#c6dbef|0%…0.2%}}

|{{Legend|#fcbba1|−0.5%…0%}}

|{{Legend|#fc9272|−1%…−0.5%}}

|{{Legend|#af321e|< −1%}}

|{{Legend|#e3dbdb|No data}}

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The Human Development Report 2025 by the United Nations Development Programme was released on 6 May 2025; the report calculates HDI values based on data collected in 2023.

Ranked from 1 to 74 in the year 2023, the following countries are considered to be of "very high human development":{{cite book |url=https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-2025 |title=Human Development Report 2025 - A matter of choice: People and possibilities in the age of AI |date=6 May 2025 |publisher=United Nations Development Programme |isbn= |publication-date=6 May 2025 |pages= |access-date=6 May 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250506064128/https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-2025 |archive-date=6 May 2025}}

The list below displays the top-ranked country from each year of the Human Development Index. Norway has been ranked the highest sixteen times, Canada eight times, and Switzerland, Japan, and Iceland have each ranked twice.

The year represents the time period from which the statistics for the index were derived. In parentheses is the year when the report was published.

{{columns-list|colwidth=25em|* 2023 (2025): {{Flagcountry|Iceland}}

• 2022 (2024): {{Flagcountry|Switzerland}}
• 2021 (2022): {{Flagcountry|Switzerland}}
• 2019 (2020): {{Flagcountry|Norway}}
• 2018 (2019): {{Flagcountry|Norway}}
• 2017 (2018): {{Flagcountry|Norway}}
• 2015 (2016): {{Flagcountry|Norway}}
• 2014 (2015): {{Flagcountry|Norway}}
• 2013 (2014): {{Flagcountry|Norway}}
• 2012 (2013): {{Flagcountry|Norway}}
• 2011 (2011): {{Flagcountry|Norway}}
• 2010 (2010): {{Flagcountry|Norway}}
• 2007 (2009): {{Flagcountry|Norway}}
• 2006 (2008): {{Flagcountry|Iceland}}
• 2005 (2007): {{Flagcountry|Iceland}}
• 2004 (2006): {{Flagcountry|Norway}}
• 2003 (2005): {{Flagcountry|Norway}}
• 2002 (2004): {{Flagcountry|Norway}}
• 2001 (2003): {{Flagcountry|Norway}}
• 2000 (2002): {{Flagcountry|Norway}}
• 1999 (2001): {{Flagcountry|Norway}}
• 1998 (2000): {{Flagcountry|Canada}}
• 1997 (1999): {{Flagcountry|Canada}}
• 1995 (1998): {{Flagcountry|Canada}}
• 1994 (1997): {{Flagcountry|Canada}}
• 1993 (1996): {{Flagcountry|Canada}}
• 1992 (1995): {{Flagcountry|Canada}}
• 1994 (1994): {{Flagcountry|Canada}}
• 1993 (1993): {{Flagcountry|Japan}}
• 1990 (1992): {{Flagcountry|Canada}}
• 1990 (1991): {{Flagcountry|Japan}}

}}

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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.{{cite web |url=http://www.unescap.org/publications/detail.asp?id=1308 |last=Hastings |first=David A. |year=2009 |title=Filling Gaps in the Human Development Index |work=United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Working Paper WP/09/02 |access-date=1 December 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110430104401/http://www.unescap.org/publications/detail.asp?id=1308 |archive-date=30 April 2011 |url-status=live }}{{cite web |url=http://www.humansecurityindex.org/?page_id=204 |last=Hastings |first=David A. |year=2011 |title=A "Classic" Human Development Index with 232 Countries |work=HumanSecurityIndex.org |access-date=9 March 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110503210307/http://www.humansecurityindex.org/?page_id=204 |archive-date=3 May 2011 |url-status=live }} Information Note linked to data

{{Div col}}

• Afghan regions
• Angolan provinces
• African countries
• Albanian counties
• Algerian regions
• Argentine provinces
• Armenian provinces
• Australian states and territories
• Austrian states
• Azerbaijani regions
• Baltic regions
• Bangladeshi districts and divisions
• Belgian provinces
• Bolivian departments
• Bosnia and Herzegovina regions
• Brazilian states
• Canadian provinces and territories
• Chilean regions
• Chinese administrative divisions
• Colombian departments
• Croatian counties
• Danish regions
• Dutch provinces
• Egyptian governorates
• Ethiopian regions
• European countries
• Finnish regions
• French regions
• German states
• Georgian regions
• Greek regions
• Indian states
• Tamil Nadu districts (India)
• Indonesian provinces
• Iranian provinces
• Iraqi governorates
• Italian regions
• Kazakhstan regions
• Japanese prefectures
• Jordanian governorates
• Latin American countries
• Malaysian states
• Mexican states
• Myanmar administrative divisions
• Nepalese provinces
• New Zealand regions
• Nigerian states
• Norwegian regions
• Pakistani administrative units
• Philippine provinces
• Palestinian regions
• Polish voivodeships
• Romanian regions
• Russian federal subjects
• Serbian Regions
• South African provinces
• South Korean regions
• Spanish communities
• Swedish regions
• Syrian governorates
• Swiss regions
• Thai regions
• Turkish regions
• UK regions
• Ukrainian regions
• U.S. states (American Human Development Report (AHDR))
• Venezuelan states
• Vietnamese regions

{{Div col end}}

File:Per-capita-co-emissions-vs-human-development-index.svg

The Human Development Index has been criticized on a number of grounds, including 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 of "low", "medium", "high" or "very high" human development countries.{{cite journal |last1=Wolff |first1=Hendrik |last2=Chong |first2=Howard |last3=Auffhammer |first3=Maximilian |year=2011 |title=Classification, Detection and Consequences of Data Error: Evidence from the Human Development Index |journal=Economic Journal |volume=121 |issue=553 |pages=843–870 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-0297.2010.02408.x |s2cid=18069132 |url=https://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/articles/338 |hdl=1813/71597 |hdl-access=free |access-date=13 July 2019 |archive-date=8 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808041651/https://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/articles/338/ |url-status=live |issn=0013-0133}}

There have also been various criticism towards the lack of consideration regarding sustainability{{Cite journal |last=WWF |first=WWF |title=Living Planet Report 2014 |url=http://assets.worldwildlife.org/publications/723/files/original/WWF-LPR2014-low_res.pdf?1413912230 |journal=Living Planet Report |volume=2014 |pages=60–62}} (which later got addressed by the planetary pressures-adjusted HDI), social inequality{{Cite journal |last1=Harttgen |first1=Kenneth |last2=Klasen |first2=Stephan |date=2012-05-01 |title=A Household-Based Human Development Index |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X11002336 |journal=World Development |volume=40 |issue=5 |pages=878–899 |doi=10.1016/j.worlddev.2011.09.011 |issn=0305-750X|hdl=10419/37505 |hdl-access=free }} (which got addressed by the inequality-adjusted HDI), unemployment or democracy.{{cite journal | last=Leiwakabessy | first=Erly | last2=Amaluddin | first2=Amaluddin | title=A Modified Human Development Index, Democracy And Economic Growth In Indonesia | journal=Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews | volume=8 | issue=2 | date=2 May 2020 | issn=2395-6518 | doi=10.18510/hssr.2020.8282 | pages=732–743| doi-access=free }}

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 have identified three sources of data error which are: (i) data updating, (ii) formula revisions and (iii) thresholds to classify a country's development status. They 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. Wolff, Chong and Auffhammer suggest that the United Nations should discontinue the practice of classifying countries into development bins because the cut-off values seem arbitrary, and the classifications can provide incentives for strategic behavior in reporting official statistics, as well as having 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 by updating 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{{cite news |url=http://www.economist.com/user/UNDP%2BHuman%2BDevelopment%2BReport%2BOffice/comments |title=UNDP Human Development Report Office's comments |date=January 2011 |newspaper=The Economist |access-date=12 January 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110211083547/http://www.economist.com/user/UNDP%2BHuman%2BDevelopment%2BReport%2BOffice/comments |archive-date=11 February 2011 |url-status=dead }} to an article published in the magazine on 6 January 2011{{cite news |url=http://www.economist.com/node/17849159?story_id=17849159 |title=The Economist (pages 60–61 in the issue of Jan 8, 2011) |date=6 January 2011 |access-date=12 January 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110113063006/http://www.economist.com/node/17849159?story_id=17849159 |archive-date=13 January 2011 |url-status=live }} 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 continuously updating the human-development categories whenever formula or data revisions take place.

In 2013, Salvatore Monni and Alessandro Spaventa emphasized that in the debate of GDP versus HDI, it is often forgotten that these are both external indicators that prioritize different benchmarks upon which the quantification of societal welfare can be predicated. The larger question is whether it is possible to shift the focus of policy from a battle between competing paradigms to a mechanism for eliciting information on well-being directly from the population.{{cite journal |last1=Monni |first1=Salvatore |last2=Spaventa |first2=Alessandro |year=2013 |title=Beyond Gdp and HDI: Shifting the focus from Paradigms to Politics |journal=Development |volume=56 |issue=2 |pages=227–231 |doi=10.1057/dev.2013.30 |s2cid=84722678 }}

{{portal|Modern history|World}}

• Corruption Perceptions Index
• Gender Inequality Index
• OECD Better Life Index (BLI)
• World Happiness Report
• International development
• List of sovereign states by percentage of population living in poverty
• Right to an adequate standard of living
• Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

{{Reflist}}

{{commons category|Human Development Index}}

• [http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi Human Development Index]
• [http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/ Human Development Tools and Rankings]

{{Global economic classifications}}

{{Population country lists}}

{{Quality of life country lists}}

{{Deprivation Indicators}}

{{Authority control}}

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