Human Development Report (HDR-2015)

Sandarbha Desk
Sandarbha Desk
  • The Human Development Report is prepared by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
  • The concept of HDI was proposed by Pakistani Economist Mahboob Ul Haq and Indian Economist Amartya Sen in the year 1990.
  • The theme for the 2015 report was: “Work” For Human Development.
  • The 2015 report was launched in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
  • The Human Development Report is based on five indices-
  1. Human Development Index (HDI)
  2. Inequality- adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI)
  3. Gender Development Index (GDI)
  4. Gender Inequality Index (GII)
  5. Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)
  • HDI-  The HDI is a composite index meant to compare the well-being of people across countries. It was first introduced by the UNDP in 1990. How to measure Human Development?
  • It is calculated as the Geometric Mean of three indicaors:
    1. Life expectancy at birth
    2. Education
    3. Gross National Income (GNI) per capita
    • The Geometric Mean of the above three parameters will give the HDI.
    • The HDI of India for the year 2015 is 0.609.
    • HDI in the range of 0.8-1.0 is considered very high. Countries like Norway, Australia, Switzerland, Denmark and Netherlands fall under this range.
    • High: 0.7-0.8: Sri Lanka, Brazil, China
    • Medium: 0.550-0.700: India ( Rank- 130 in 2015 which was 135 in 2014), Bhutan, Bangladesh
    • Low: The last rank 188th was obtained by Niger. Nepal, Pakistan, Myanmar also fall under this category.
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    • Since not much improvement can be made in the life expectancy at birth ( as it is already high), to increase our ranking we must improve the education sector and the GNI.
  • IHDI- As Human Development Index is a geometric mean of three parameters, so it masks the internal inequalities prevailing in a country. The inequality adjusted HDI or the IHDI comes out to be 0.435 which is less than HDI.
  • The loss in Human Development because of inequality will be HDI – IHDI. It means that when inequality is factored in India loses over one-fourth of it’s HDI value, with education registering the highest inequality in outcomes.
  • The average adult man in India gets twice as many years of schooling as the average adult woman.
  • India’s ranking in terms of IHDI is 131 for the year 2015.
  • GDI- It is the ratio of the Female HDI to the Male HDI.
  • If the ratio is >1, it means that there is more development in case of women as compared to that of men. For example, countries like Estonia, Latvia and Russia have GDI > 1.
  • India’s GDI for 2015 is 0.795 which implies the lesser human development of women.
  • GII – it was introduced in 2010. India ranks 130 on this parameter. It will focus on three things.
  1. Reproductive Health of the girl child– It is measured by Maternal Mortality and Adolescent Birth Rates. Maternal Mortality Rate for India is 190 per 1 lakh live births. Adolescent Birth Rate for India is 33 per 1000 girls. So these need to be improved.
  2. Empowerment of the girl child– It is measured by the share of parliamentary seats held by women and attainment in secondary and higher education by gender. There are 12.2% women members of the Parliament. There are hardly 27% girls who have passed Higher Secondary School.
  3. Economic Activity – It is measured by the labor participation rate for women and men. Labor force participation for women is just 27%.
  • MPI – It was also introduced in 2010. It identifies multiple deprivations at the household and individual level in health, education and standard of living. Each person in a given household is classified as poor or non-poor depending on the number of deprivations his or her household experiences.
  • On the MPI, which measures deprivation on six indicators, over half of India’s population is multi-dimensionally poor.

 

  • The 2015 report looks at the role of work in improving human development.
  • Besides national employment strategies, the report calls for –
  • a new social contract between government, society, and the private sector to ensure that all members of society have their needs taken into account in policy formulation.
  • a global deal among governments to guarantee worker’s rights and benefits around the world.
  • a decent work agenda, that will help promote freedom of association, equity, security, and human dignity in work life.
  • The report finds that women consistently earn less than men and are less likely than men to be in leadership positions.
  • The high proportion of unpaid care work that falls on them alone pushes them out of the workforce, resulting in one of the world’s lowest female labor force participation rates.
  • The report highlights how vulnerable and ill-prepared for the future the majority of the Indian workforce is, and without a social protection blanket.

 

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