What Does Human Development Index Mean In Geography

Why Is The Human Development Index Important

Social measures of development ought to be factored in to calculate a countrys overall level of development. Some believe that additional factors such as human rights and happiness are very important. Political corruption and gender inequality are used in some studies. With so much data available to us we use composite measures instead. Composite measures combine several development measures into one formula. The Human Development Index consists of three elements. These are:

• income
• life expectancy
• education

HDI per capita is used as an estimated measure of wealth. Life expectancy is the average number of years a person can expect to live. The average number of years of schooling is used in an education index. The three parts are processed to produce a number between 0 and 1.

The worlds highest-and lowest-scoring countries in 2015 are shown below:

Norway = 0.944

The American Human Development Index

The Measure of America presents a modified American Human Development Index. The American HD Index measures the same three basic dimensions as the standard HD Index, but it uses different indicators to better reflect the U.S. context and to maximize use of available data. For example, while the standard index measures access to knowledge using the;average number;of;years that students spend in school, we have chosen instead to use educational attainment, a more demanding indicator.

While data are plentiful on the extremes of affluence and deprivation in the United States, the American Human Development Index provides a single measure of well-being for all Americans, disaggregated by state and congressional district, as well as by gender, race, and ethnicity. All data used in the index come from official U.S. government sourcesthe American Community Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The data included in the American Human Development Index will help us understand variations among regions and groups. It is a snapshot of America today. Moreover, the index will serve as a baseline for monitoring future progress.

Its Here: The New Britannica Kids Website

Weve been busy, working hard to bring you new features and an updated design. We hope you and your family enjoy the NEW Britannica Kids. Take a minute to check out all the enhancements!

• The same safe and trusted content for explorers of all ages.
• Accessible across all of today’s devices: phones, tablets, and desktops.
• Improved homework resources designed to support a variety of curriculum subjects and standards.
• A new, third level of content, designed specially to meet the advanced needs of the sophisticated scholar.
• And so much more!

Recommended Reading: Evaluating Functions Worksheet Algebra 2 Answer Key

How Is The Human Development Index Calculated

The Human Development Index ;provides a single index measure to capture three key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living.

The HDI utilizes four key metrics:3

• life expectancy at birth to assess a long and healthy life
• expected years of schooling to assess access to knowledge of the young generation
• average years of schooling to assess access to knowledge of the older generation
• gross national income per capita to assess the standard of living

There are two steps to calculating the HDI:

1. Forming indices for each of the four metrics

Values of each of the four metrics are first normalized to an index value of 0 to 1. To do this, goalposts of the maximum and minimum limits on each metrics are set by the UNDP, as shown in the table.

With the actual value for a given country, and the global maximum and minimum, the dimension value for each metric is calculated as:

The dimension index is therefore 1 in a country that achieves the maximum value and it is 0 for a country that is at the minimum value.

2. Aggregating the four metrics to produce the HDI

Once each of the individual indices have been calculated, they are aggregated to calculate the HDI.

The HDI is calculated as the geometric mean of life expectancy, education, and GNI per capita, as follows:

The education dimension is the arithmetic mean of the two education indices .

A Brief Scenario Of Environmental Health

Table;1. Malaysias environmental health data sheet

WHO Malaysia: Environmental Health Country Profile. Geneva: World Health Organization.

According to 2000 Department of Statistics data, approximately 29% of the Malaysian population used solid or biomass fuels for their cooking and heating needs. Only 11% of the vehicles use diesel, whereas 89% have been using unleaded gasoline. Emissions from mobile and stationary sources are the most significant sources of pollution. Emissions from mobile sources contribute 80.4% of the total load, followed by emissions from stationary sources such as industrial fuel consumption , industrial processes , power stations , domestic fuel , and open burning at solid waste dumping sites . In 2001, approximately 6.378 million tons of solid wastes were generated. There are 170 recycling centers throughout the country. In 2003, wastes from hospitals and health care institutions amounted to 5864;tons. The amount of hazardous waste is not available, but there is a large facility in Malaysia for treatment and disposal. Almost half of the hazardous waste comes from the electronics industry.

G.P. Marchildon, in, 2017

Also Check: Span Definition Linear Algebra

A Decent Standard Of Living

Income is essential to meeting basic needs like food and shelterand to moving beyond these necessities to a life of genuine choice and freedom. Income enables valuable options and alternatives, and its absence can limit life chances and restrict access to many opportunities. Income is a means to a host of critical ends, including a decent education; a safe, clean living environment; security in illness and old age; and a say in the decisions that affect ones life. Money isnt everything, but its something quite important.

A decent standard of living is measured using median personal earnings of all full- and part-time workers 16 years and older from the American Community Survey, U.S. Census Bureau.

The Redundancy Of The Underlying Indices

A further relevant concern is related to the redundancy of HDI components. Life expectancy, GNI, and education are strongly correlated with one other, both empirically and conceptually . This is not surprising. People who are more educated tend to be richer and, on average, experience longer life spans. This is known as the âsocioeconomic gradientâ and represents a very pervasive phenomenon in virtually all societies around the world . In itself, redundancy does not pose a problem for the reliability of the index. However, it does question the efficiency of the HDI, suggesting that the composite index might not reveal more than its single components. Similar results could then be achieved through a less information-demanding approach.

Don’t Miss: Geometry Segment Addition Postulate Worksheet

Human Labour In Extended Exergy Accounting

In extended exergy accounting methodology, which is also based on the cumulative consumption calculus , proposed and developed by a team led by Sciubba, human work is taken into account . It is classified as non-energetic externalities costs, alternatively referred to as added exergy, and is provided as exergetic equivalent. The labour cost calculation concerns the general human service in each portion of a society and is computed on the basis of industrial monetary estimates . The extended exergy is defined as the sum of cumulative exergy consumption of the equivalent exergy of labour, capital and environment. Moreover, the exergetic equivalent of capital is also connected with human labour.

The exergetic equivalent of human labour eeL is the ratio of the total exergy input of society during a year in selected sector Ein,Sector to the cumulative number of work-hours in a year in selected sector nworkhours :

Human Development In Our Country

Turkey has been listed in the reports and indexes since the beginning of the publishing in 1990. According to this; although Turkey has been listed among the countries with high level of human development by going up 15 lines especially between 2008-2013, the regression in last three years is remarkable.

187 countries were listed in Human Development Index 2015. The country with highest HDI score is Norway and the lowest HDI score belongs to Niger. According to UNDPs Human Development Indices and Indicators: 2018 Statistical Update, Turkey has been listed as 64th in the Index and placed at the high human development level. However, there is still much to do for Turkey in human development. For this, contribution to the human development falls first to the public enterprises and also to all enterprises and sectors.

Don’t Miss: Unit 1 Test Geometry Basics Answers Key

Geographic Variations In Development

There is a considerable spatial variation in development rates.

Global wealth also increased in material terms, and during the period 1947 to 2000, average per capita incomes tripled as global GDP increased almost tenfold … Over 25% of the 4.5 billion people in LEDCs still have life expectancies below 40 years. More than 80 countries have a lower annual per capita income in 2000 than they did in 1990. The average income in the world’s five richest countries is 74 times the level in the world’s poorest five, the widest it has ever been. Nearly 1.3 billion people have no access to clean water. About 840 million people are malnourished.

Stephen Codrington

The most famous pattern in development is the North-South divide. The North-South divide separates the rich North or the developed world, from the poor South. This line of division is not as straightforward as it sounds and splits the globe into two main parts. It is also known as the Brandt Line.

Within countries the pattern is that wealth is more concentrated around urban areas than rural areas. Wealth also tends towards areas with natural resources or in areas that are involved in tertiary industries and trade. This leads to a gathering of wealth around mines and monetary centres such as New York, London and Tokyo.

Gross National Income Per Capita

The gross national income per capita, or GNI, measures the annual income of the average citizen based on purchasing power parity, or PPP. The GNI index uses a minimum income of $100 and a maximum of $75,000. The index uses a logarithmic scale to show the decrease in purchasing power as income increases. The GNI per capita for citizens of Generica is $50,000. The income index for the HDI would be / , or 0.94.

You May Like: What Is Mean Median Mode And Range In Math

Structural Changes In The Goalpost Values And The Functional Form Of The Index

During the past decade, the details of how the HDI is computed have frequently changed.

These changes ultimately reflect the lack of consensus on the relative importance of the factors influencing human development. For example, it is not clear whether in calculating human development, the geometric or arithmetic average of the mean and expected years of schooling should be used. In assessing human development, there is no benefit for having a GNI per capita above $75,000 . Instead of $75,000 could that income level be $85,000, or $65,000? This lack of consensus suggests the possibility that the methodology of the HDI will continue to be contested and that changes will continue to be made.

A historical series of HDIs can be produced holding the functional form of the HDI fixed as well as the goalpost values. However, different historical series result each time the functional form of the HDI or the goalposts are changed. Historical series of HDI values depend on historical series of GNI per capita, and it is not clear how well those data reflect the growth of real GNI per capita using local currency prices. A promising approach to long-run GNI measurement has recently been suggested by Bolt and colleagues .

The Geography And History Of The Hli Across Countries

Figure shows the distribution of the HLI across countries based on 2010â15 UN life tables. In general, countries broadly maintain their development rankings when the measure switches from HDI to HLI . Nevertheless, the correlation between HLI and HDI is not perfect and for some countries the changes in the relative position can be substantial. This mainly happens for the richer countries, where the high level of income represents the main driver of the good HDI performance. Consider for example Norway, which has been on the top of the HDI ranking for the last two decades. Its high GNI per capita is based, in part, on its extensive North Sea oil and gas deposits. When using the HLI, Norway slips to the ninth position, mainly because its very high levels of GNI per capita have not been translated into correspondingly longer life spans.

Figure 2

Changes in country rankings from a ranking based on the HDI to a ranking based on the HLI

SOURCES: UNDP and authorsâ calculations.

NOTES: Positive numbers imply improvement in rankings. HDI = Human Development Index. HLI = Human Life Indicator.

Figure 4

SOURCE: UC Berkeley, and Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research .

NOTE: HLI = Human Life Indicator.

Don’t Miss: What Is K Physics

Human Development Index: Three Indicators

The Human Development Index or HDI is a statistic composite used to measure the overall achievement of a country based on its social and economic dimensions. Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq spearheaded the development of this index while working as a Special Adviser to the United National Development Programme Administrator William Henry Draper alongside the introduction of the Human Development Report in 1990.

Note that the primary purpose of HDI is to provide a simple composite measure of human development to convince the public, policymakers and government leaders, and academicians that the level of development of a particular country should be measured not only by economic indicators but also by improvements in human well-being. Nonetheless, there are three indicators of HDI: life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators.

Problems With The Hdi

Human development can be devilishly hard to measure. The HDI considers changes in three domains: economics, education, and health.

In our view, the HDI has three main problems. First, it implicitly assumes trade-offs between its components. For example, the HDI measures health using life expectancy at birth and measures economic conditions using GDP per capita. So the same HDI score can be achieved with different combinations of the two.

As a result, the HDI implies a value of an additional year of life in terms of economic output. This value differs according to a countrys level of GDP per capita. Dig into the HDI and you will find whether it assumes an additional year of life is worth more in the US or Canada, more in Germany or France, and more in Norway or Niger.

The HDI also struggles with the accuracy and meaningfulness of the underlying data. Average income could be high in a country, but what if most of it goes to a small elite? The HDI does not distinguish between countries with the same GDP per capita, but different levels of income inequality or between countries based on the quality of education. By focusing on averages, the HDI can obscure important differences in human development. Incorporating inaccurate or incomplete data in an index reduces its usefulness.

You May Like: Who Are Paris Jackson’s Biological Parents

Objectivity And Subjectivity Of Well

According to Diener , well-being is defined either objectively, for example, the Human Development Index , or subjectively, so according to the interests of the person whose well-being is being assessed. People often express a good level of well-being when they feel that their lives are going well. This subjective conception of well-being comes close to the concept of utility of economists as the result of maximization of personal happiness. Diener also stressed the need to take into account the affective responses of people, in order to know whether the conditions of their environment correspond to their preferences or not.

McGillivray summarized many conceptualizations of well-being and stressed that the term is an abstraction that refers to everything that can be assessed from a persons life situation. This situation corresponds to the quality of life, the standard of living and the level of personal development of the person. Other notions of well-being can combine social protection, life satisfaction, prosperity, autonomy and happiness. The fulfillment of basic human needs is also a component of well-being.

Another subjective approach to measuring well-being is to question people on their level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with life. The scores reported in the World Happiness Database are based on answers to a simple question: How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with your life? .

Wojciech Stanek, … Tomasz Simla, in, 2019

A Long And Healthy Life

The most valuable capability people possess is to be alive. Advancing human development requires, first and foremost, expanding the real opportunities people have to avoid premature death by disease or injury, to enjoy protection from arbitrary denial of life, to live in a healthy environment, to maintain a healthy lifestyle, to receive quality medical care, and to attain the highest possible standard of physical and mental health.

In the American HD Index, life expectancy at birth stands as a proxy for the capability to live a long and healthy life. Life expectancy at birth is the average number of years a baby born today is expected to live if current mortality patterns continue throughout his or her lifetime. The most commonly used gauge of population health the world over, life expectancy at birth represents one-third of the overall American HD Index.

The American Human Development Project calculates life expectancy for the 50 states, the 435 congressional districts, women and men, and major racial and ethnic groups from mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, and population data from the CDC WONDER database.

Read Also: Angle Addition Postulate Practice