Human Development Index
| Quick info | |
|---|---|
| Data type | Numeric |
| Scale | Metric |
| Value labels | not applicable |
| Technical name | socstr_hdi_undp |
| Category | Social structure |
| Label | Human Development Index |
| Related indicators |
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The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite indicator that reflects average performance in three crucial aspects of human development: living a long and healthy life, acquiring knowledge, and enjoying a reasonable standard of living. The HDI is calculated as the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of these three dimensions. It ranges from 0 to 1. The closer the score is to 1, the better the country is performing.
Coding rules
The HDI is derived from four key indicators: life expectancy at birth (in years), expected years of schooling (in years), mean years of schooling (in years), and GNI per capita (in 2017 PPP$). The calculation involves two main steps. First, the minimum and maximum values (goalposts) are established for each indicator to convert them into indices ranging from 0 to 1. These goalposts represent "natural zeros" and "aspirational targets," which help standardize the component indicators. After defining the minimum and maximum values, the dimension index is calculated using the formula:
Dimension index = (actual value - minimum value) / (maximum value - minimum value).
For the education dimension, this formula is applied to each of the two education indicators, and the arithmetic mean of the resulting indices is taken. Since each dimension index reflects capabilities in the corresponding area, the transformation from income to capabilities is assumed to be concave (Anand and Sen, 2000), meaning that each additional dollar of income has a diminishing impact on expanding capabilities. As a result, for income, the natural logarithm of the actual, minimum, and maximum values is used.
The second step is to aggregate the dimensions: the HDI is the geometric mean of the three dimension indices, calculated as:
HDI = (IHealth × IEducation × IIncome)^(1/3).
For more information, see "Human Develoment Report 2023/2024 technical notes" https://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/2023-24_HDR/hdr2023-24_technical_notes.pdf and "Human Development Index (HDI)" https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indicies/HDI (Accessed August 14, 2024).
Teorell et al. (2024:922pp) define the variable as "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."
Bibliographic info
Citation:- Teorell, Jan and Sundström, Aksel and Holmberg, Sören and Rothstein, Bo and Alvarado Pachon, Natalia and Dalli, Cem Mert and Lopez Valvarde, Rafael and Nilsson, Paula (2024). The Quality of Government Standard Dataset, version Jan24. University of Gothenburg: The Quality of Government Institute, Available at: https://www.gu.se/en/quality-government/qog-data/data-downloads/standard-dataset
- United Nations Development Program. (2022). Human development report 2021/2022. https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-2021-22
- UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) (2024). Human Development Report 2023-24: Breaking the gridlock: Reimagining cooperation in a polarized world. New York.
Misc
Project manager(s): Responsible for data editing, description (WESIS) and entry: Andrea Schäfer (2021-2025, Version 0.002), Jean-Yves Gerlitz (2018-2020; Version 0.001); Principal Investigator: Irene Dingeldey, Ulrich Mückenberger; Student assistants: Karolin Meyer (2018-2020)
Data release:- Version 0.001: Initial release with data from The Quality of Government Standard Dataset, version Jan19
- Version 0.002: Updated with data from The Quality of Government Standard Dataset, version January 2024
Revisions: No revisions yet
Sources
- Teorell, Jan, Stefan Dahlberg, Sören Holmberg, Bo Rothstein, Natalia Alvarado Pachon and Richard Svensson. 2019. The Quality of Government Standard Dataset, version Jan19. University of Gothenburg: The Quality of Government Institute. http://www.qog.pol.gu.se doi:10.18157/qogstdjan19
- Teorell, Jan and Sundström, Aksel and Holmberg, Sören and Rothstein, Bo and Alvarado Pachon, Natalia and Dalli, Cem Mert and Lopez Valvarde, Rafael and Nilsson, Paula (2024). The Quality of Government Standard Dataset, version Jan24. University of Gothenburg: The Quality of Government Institute, Available at: https://www.gu.se/en/quality-government/qog-data/data-downloads/standard-dataset
- United Nations Development Program. (2022). Human development report 2021/2022. https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-2021-22
