Human Development Index

• Human development

  Creating an environment in which people can develop to their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accordance with their needs and interests. It is about expanding people's choices and enhancing capabilities, having access to knowledge, health and a decent standard of living, and participating in the life of their community and decisions affecting their lives
• Characteristics of human development

  • Develop to their full potential
  • Lead productive and creative lives
  • Participate in lives of the community
  • Expand and have choices
  • Enhance their capabilities
  • Have access to knowledge
  • Have access to health
  • Enjoy a decent standard of living
• Human Development Index


  A tool developed by the United Nations to measure and rank countries' level of social and economic development. It provides a single statistic based on three dimensions and four indicators
• Classifications of human development

  • Very high human development - 0.8 or higher
  • High human development - 0.7 to 0.79
  • Medium human development - 0.55-0.69
  • Low human development 0.54 or below
• Dimensions of the Human Development Index


  • A long and healthy life
  • Knowledge
  • A decent standard of living
• Indicators of the Human Development Index

  • Life expectancy at birth
  • Mean years of schooling
  • Expected years of schooling
  • Gross national income per capita
• Advantages of the Human Development Index

  • Provides a comprehensive representation of the level of human development experienced
  • Allows comparisons to be made between countries as it is a composite statistic
  • Effective for analysing progress that is made by countries over time
  • Helps people question and revise current policy choice
• Limitations of the Human Development Index

  • Only reflects selected aspects of human development and does not capture the depth of human development
  • Doesn't represent inequalities within a country as it takes average statistics
  • Does not include individual's feelings and opinions on their level of safety
  • Challenging to measure the reliability of data and the number of dimensions considered are limited