Recently, more and more often in the media you can hear about the Human Development Index (HDI). I would like more talk in detail about this indicator and understand how it is determined.
First of all, the Human Development Index is an economic indicator that is used by the UN to determine the quality of life in various countries. It is very important not to confuse this concept with the standard of living, these are fundamentally different definitions. The standard of living can characterize the degree of material well-being, that is, people's satisfaction with their material wealth. In this case, the average standard of living in the country can be visually displayed using GDP per unit of population. While the concept of "quality of life" contains the "intangible" aspects of life. This may include life expectancy and health, the ability to spend leisure time and relax, the cultural wealth of the country, its spiritual level of development, etc.
It is logical that determining the quality of life is quite difficult, because this concept is quite multifaceted and complex, which includes a number of aspects, moreover, it cannot be expressed in monetary terms. To do this, you need to use a kind of integral indicator, but do not forget that in this case, the data cannot be considered absolutely accurate and true.
Such an integral indicator was the human development index, which was developed in 1990 by two foreign economists: Pakistani Mahbub ul-Khakov and Indian Amartya Sen. After that, since 1993, the UN annually conducts a tough report on the development of this indicator, which displays the value of the HDI for most countries of the world. It should be noted that the data provided by the UN are known with a delay of 2 years.
An alternative indicator was introduced for the HDI - the poverty index, which, however, was not widely used. Perhaps the main reason for this may be the inconsistent name that compromises the capitalist system of many countries. By the way, this indicator is calculated as well as the human potential index.
In essence, the HDI contains three main indicators - this is the standard of living, which can be estimated through the gross domestic product per capita, the education index, that is, the literacy rate of the population, as well as average life expectancy.
The educational indicator includes the degree of adult literacy, as well as the total percentage of students. That is, the number of literate people among residents of the state who are already 15 years old can be considered an indicator of this level. A literate person can conditionally be called an individual who can read and write the simplest text relating to his daily life. Typically, the literacy rate can be ascertained in a census, but is carried out once every 10 years. In order to check this indicator, indirect studies are conducted annually, with the help of which they try to more accurately determine the true number of literate people. For example, they examine people who marry, or conscripts. It must be said that such a method is selective in nature and cannot provide an accurate and complete picture of the literacy of all segments of the population.
The human development index can range from zero to one. It is determined by the formula, where the arithmetic mean values of all three indices indicated above are taken into account. It is the conversion of indicators into an index value, which can be expressed in a numerical value from 0 to unity, that makes it possible to take into account such different and incommensurable indicators in one integral indicator.
I would like to note that a number of countries are not included in the UN calculation. Small countries in Europe, such as Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco, Andorra do not publish their data. News in the economies of these states suggests that the HDI is very high, as it was 10 years ago. Some countries are still not included in UN reports; these include divided Serbia and Montenegro, as well as Macau and Taiwan, although according to preliminary data they have a very high HDI.
Countries where there is a war, have long been defining their development index. These are states such as Liberia, Afghanistan, Somalia, etc. It can be assumed that this indicator in these states will be monstrously low.