Friday, September 25, 2015

Human Development Index ; HDI


                                                      Comments due by Oct. 2, 2015
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 have a decent standard of living. The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three dimensions.
The health dimension is assessed by life expectancy at birth component of the HDI is calculated using a minimum value of 20 years and maximum value of 85 years. The education component of the HDI is measured by mean of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years and expected years of schooling for children of school entering age. Mean years of schooling is estimated by UNESCO Institute for Statistics based on educational attainment data from censuses and surveys available in its database. Expected years of schooling estimates are based on enrolment by age at all levels of education. This indicator is produced by UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Expected years of schooling is capped at 18 years. The indicators are normalized using a minimum value of zero and maximum aspirational values of 15 and 18 years respectively. The two indices are combined into an education index using arithmetic mean.
The standard of living dimension is measured by gross national income per capita. The goalpost for minimum income is $100 (PPP) and the maximum is $75,000 (PPP). The minimum value for GNI per capita, set at $100, is justified by the considerable amount of unmeasured subsistence and nonmarket production in economies close to the minimum that is not captured in the official data. 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 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.
A fuller picture of a country's level of human development requires analysis of other indicators and information presented in the statistical annex of the report.

Copy this link into your browser to look at the HDI data:
http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-1-human-development-index-and-its-components

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

This article about the HDI honestly reminds me of the previous article about the happiness index. There's a bit near the end that talks about how the HDI doesn't factor in a lot of things, like poverty, inequalities, etc. and it just reminds me of how the happiness index factors in only the GDP of a country, and not what the people themselves are experiencing. In the end, they could both be improved by not just focusing in on like, one thing- especially if that one thing is related to the economy- but by many other things that are experienced by those living in the country.

-E. Piper Phillips

Heather Kiczek said...

Although assessing a country's economic growth is imperative when evaluating and measuring the economy, it is also important to recognize the capabilities of the people. Capabilities of people who are fulfilling jobs in the workforce is important because it reflects the income in a household and the circular flow of money. Although the measurement does not reflect on inequalities, poverty, human security, and empowerment, it does measure schooling and health measurement for life expectancy. This proves that in order to understand human development in a country completely, there needs to be studies that measure all aspects of what goes into the makeup of an individual's personal economy. Each individual study will then lead to the outcome of an overall measurement of the general economy.

Anonymous said...

Using HDI and other formulas, and calculations to find out a countries economic growth is a great thing. HDI takes many variables like lifestyle, and knowledge to formulate a conclusion. These variables are usually unaccounted for with any other analysis. This provides analyst with a more in depth look at what a country is doing well in, and worst in. These calculations can help us catch any problem before it becomes a bigger issue than it needs to be.

-Alexander Shields

Anonymous said...

In the article it states "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 have a decent standard of living. The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three dimensions."
I believe that using HDI is a good idea. We would be able to get an idea of what are a country's strength and weaknesses. That way we can try to help each other before the problem becomes bigger. We'll be able to prevent things from happening and we would be able to see ahead of time.

- Chelsy Ventura

Unknown said...

HDI is important because it assesses the development of a country. GDP and GNI are both about a country's economy and finances, but they do not tell us how developed a nation really is as far as life expectancy, standard of living, and intellect. Human development index probably has a direct correlation with happiness index because a high standard of living and high life expectancy most likely means that satisfaction is also high. However, these two can differ when large calamities occur because they affect happiness index more than human development.

Anonymous said...

HDI is important in not only assessing economic growth, but also their capabilities. It measures the average achievements of human development of things like a long & healthy life, education, and having decent means of living. Calculating HDI helps look at the country at a whole, just not the economy.

-Stefanie Svoboda

Unknown said...

The Human Development Index, or the HDI, is an overall measure of achievements in dimensions of human development. It uses a long and healthy life or something like being knowledgeable and standard living to get the HDI. The HDI uses all of those three dimensions. I Believe it is very important because it doesn't just tell us about the economic growth of a country but it also factors in the three dimensions with are long and healthy life, being knowledgeable, and having a standard living. HDI factors in a lot more than a normal economist would.

Anonymous said...

According to Human development index reports"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 have a decent standard of living. The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three dimensions". I believe that using HDI is very useful because it shows what the country is doing well .

-Marvin Jean-Baptiste

Nikolas Fountis said...

According to this article, The Human Development Index also known as HDI, is an overall measure of achievements in dimensions of human development. This is important to our economy. You can relate this to economic growth. It helps show how we are and if we are improving. It allows us to become more knowledgeable about the way we live. It allows people to see for themselves where we stand. It also helps explains the life we live and the standards in which we live in. This is why I believe it is very important.

-Nikolas Fountis

Alexandar Dimcevski said...

During class we discussed the cost-benefit analysis; stabling the pros against the cons to determent if the outcome of a project would be economically profitable. I’m well aware that the cost benefit analysis is utilized to determine how money should be distributed in the most satisfactory way. However, what you mentioned is that people will see costs and benefits from varying perspectives. Therefore, it’s hard to determine who is right in this situation. I feel that it’s the same thing with the Human Development Index, also known as HDI, the subject of last week’s happiness post. It’s all speculative in determining forces’ quantitative statistics instead of quality.

Anonymous said...

This article is very similar to the last article we read which discussed the Happiness Index and how the happiness of citizens is vitals to the development of the country. However this articles says that the Human Developement Index is also vital in the development the country. The Human Developement Index is a summary measurement of a country's achievement. It consists of long and healthy life, knowledge, and standard of living. The first dimension the health dimension measures life expectancy and education. The second dimension the standard of living dimension measures GDP and GNI. Althoug the HDI measure most elements of a persons life, it doesn't measure all of them. It doesn't display inequalities, empowerment, human security, and poverty. Unlike the Happiness Index I believe that the Human Developement Index explains more and is very important for the Developement of the country.
-Surina Sandhu

Unknown said...

This article talks about the Human Development Index (HDI) and how it works. The key dimensions of it are a long healthy life, being knowledgeable and to have a decent standard living. But just like what I said about the last week article I don’t think it totally gives a complete picture of what we are looking for. Yes it gives you an idea about the development of a country, but it still leaves out some other things that can help paint the whole picture like poverty and inequality.

Anonymous said...

The Human Development Index is an overall measure of achievements in dimensions of human development. The HDI uses three dimensions: long and healthily, being knowledgable and have a decent standard of living. When calculating the HDI it does not look at just the economy, but as a country as a whole. I believe the HDI is very important because it helps us understand our countries strengths and weaknesses. We will be able to solve issues before they become a larger problem.
-Jane Kasparian

Anthony Zullo said...

In this article the importance of the Human Development Index is talked about. Much of a comparison to last weeks article this is another study that is used to help see contributions to the United States. The Human Development Index has to do with human life span, and knowledge people have and if that knowledge lives up to there jobs. The Human development also compares to the american dream, and peoples life fulfillment. I don't believe this is a valid study that you can base success or failure on because there are many factors and problems in the United States not factored into this study including poverty. What i do believe is last articles study, this articles studies and many studies that are similar are all used together to formulate a prediction on how the United States is doing each year. The Human Development Index is not 100% reliable because everyone enjoys life in different ways, with different incomes, and enjoying different jobs so it makes it hard to compare these people.

Anonymous said...

This article speaks about the Human Development Index (HDI). It is used to evaluate the development of human society. There are three determinants of the HDI. The health dimension determines the average life expectancy. A higher life expectancy could reflect that the medical abilities of the country are up to par. However, it is not 100% accurate due to the fact that some people could be making lots of money but be miserable at their job. And then there can be people capable of working another job but not having the opportunity to use their skills to the highest degree. The people of Norway are probably all working to fullest capacity and their happiness index is definetly a lot higher than other countries due to having the highest HDI.

- Nick Arciszewski

Unknown said...
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