Variable: Human Development Index

QoG Code: (undp_hdi)


Dataset: Human Development Report

Description:

The HDI 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 HDI can also be used to question national policy choices, asking how two countries with the same level of GNI per capita can end up with different human development outcomes. These contrasts can stimulate debate about government policy priorities.

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and having a decent standard of living. The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three dimensions. The closer the score is to 1, the better the country is doing.

The health dimension is assessed by life expectancy at birth, the education dimension is measured by mean of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years and more and expected years of schooling for children of school entering age. The standard of living dimension is measured by gross national income per capita. The HDI uses the logarithm of income, to reflect the diminishing importance of income with increasing GNI. The scores for the three HDI dimension indices are then aggregated into a composite index using geometric mean. Refer to Technical notes for more details.

The HDI simplifies and captures only part of what human development entails. It does not reflect on inequalities, poverty, human security, empowerment, etc. The HDRO offers the other composite indices as broader proxy on some of the key issues of human development, inequality, gender disparity and human poverty.

Type of variable: Continuous

Downloaded by QoG on: 2023-11-06
Last updated by source: 2022-09-16


Categories:

Health Education Public Economy


Find this variable in:

Basic Cross-section - 2024 Basic Time-series - 2024 OECD Cross-section - 2024 OECD Time-series - 2024 Standard Cross-section - 2024 Standard Time-series - 2024 Original Dataset

Details of this variable in our compilations datasets
Dataset No. Countries
Basic cross-section: 189
Basic time-series: 191
Standard cross-section: 189
Standard time-series: 191
OECD cross-section: 38
OECD time-series: 39

Dataset Available for years:
Standard time-series: 1990-2021
Basic time-series: 1990-2021
OECD time-series: 1990-2021

This variable has information for these countries:

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