Human Development Index

World map of Countries scored by HDI

World map of countries or territories by HDI scores in increments of 0.050 (based on 2023 data, published in 2025) Template:Legend-col

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistical composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, which is used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. A country scores a higher level of HDI when the lifespan is higher, the education level is higher, and the gross national income GNI (PPP) per capita is higher. It was developed by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul-Haq and Amartya Sen, and was further used to measure a country's development by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s Human Development Report Office.

The 2010 Human Development Report introduced an inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI). While the simple HDI remains useful, it stated that "the IHDI is the actual level of human development (accounting for this inequality), while the HDI can be viewed as an index of 'potential' human development (or the maximum level of HDI) that could be achieved if there was no inequality."

The index is based on the human development approach, developed by Mahbub ul-Haq, anchored in Amartya Sen's work on human capabilities, and often framed in terms of whether people are able to "be" and "do" desirable things in life. Examples include — being: well-fed, sheltered, and healthy; doing: work, education, voting, participating in community life. The freedom of choice is considered central — someone choosing to be hungry (e.g. when fasting for religious reasons) is considered different from someone who is hungry because they cannot afford to buy food, or because the country is going through a famine.

The index does not take into account several factors, such as the net wealth per capita or the relative quality of goods in a country. This situation tends to lower the ranking of some of the most developed countries, such as the G7 members and others.

Origins

The origins of the HDI are found in the annual Human Development Reports produced by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). These annual reports were devised and launched by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul-Haq in 1990, and had the explicit purpose "to shift the focus of development economics from national income accounting to people-centered policies". He believed that a simple composite measure of human development was needed to convince the public, academics and politicians that they can, and should, evaluate development not only by economic advances but also improvements in human well-being.

File:Human Development Index Underlying Principles.svg

The underlying principle behind the Human Development Index

Dimensions and calculation

New method (2010 HDI onwards)

File:Human Development Index regions evolution 1990-2021-fr.svg

HDI trends between 1990 and 2021

World   OECD countries

Developing countries:   Arab States   East Asia and the Pacific   Europe and Central Asia   Latin America and the Caribbean   South Asia   Sub-Saharan Africa

Published on 4 November 2010 (and updated on 10 June 2011), the 2010 Human Development Report calculated the HDI combining three dimensions:

• A long and healthy life: Life expectancy at birth
• Education: Mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling
• A decent standard of living: GNI per capita (PPP international dollars)

In its 2010 Human Development Report, the UNDP began using a new method of calculating the HDI. The following three indices are used:

1. Life Expectancy Index (LEI) $=\frac{\text{<mrow data-mjx-texclass="ORD">LE</mrow>}-20}{85-20}=\frac{\text{<mrow data-mjx-texclass="ORD">LE</mrow>}-20}{65}$

LEI is equal to 1 when life expectancy at birth is 85 years, and 0 when life expectancy at birth is 20 years.

2. Education Index (EI) $=\frac{\text{<mrow data-mjx-texclass="ORD">MYSI</mrow>}+\text{<mrow data-mjx-texclass="ORD">EYSI</mrow>}}{2}$

2.1 Mean Years of Schooling Index (MYSI) $=\frac{\text{<mrow data-mjx-texclass="ORD">MYS</mrow>}}{15}$

Fifteen is the projected maximum of this indicator for 2025.

2.2 Expected Years of Schooling Index (EYSI) $=\frac{\text{<mrow data-mjx-texclass="ORD">EYS</mrow>}}{18}$

Eighteen is equivalent to achieving a master's degree in most countries.

3. Income Index (II) $=\frac{\ln (\text{<mrow data-mjx-texclass="ORD">GNIpc</mrow>})-\ln (100)}{\ln (75,000)-\ln (100)}=\frac{\ln (\text{<mrow data-mjx-texclass="ORD">GNIpc</mrow>})-\ln (100)}{\ln (750)}$

II is 1 when GNI per capita is $75,000 and 0 when GNI per capita is $100.

Finally, the HDI is the geometric mean of the previous three normalized indices:

$\text{<mrow data-mjx-texclass="ORD">HDI</mrow>}=\sqrt[3]{\text{<mrow data-mjx-texclass="ORD">LEI</mrow>}\cdot \text{<mrow data-mjx-texclass="ORD">EI</mrow>}\cdot \text{<mrow data-mjx-texclass="ORD">II</mrow>}}.$

LE: Life expectancy at birth
MYS: Mean years of schooling (i.e. years that a person aged 25 or older has spent in formal education)
EYS: Expected years of schooling (i.e. total expected years of schooling for children under 18 years of age, incl. young men and women aged 13–17)
GNIpc: Gross national income at purchasing power parity per capita Template:Break

Old method (HDI before 2010)

The HDI combined three dimensions last used in its 2009 report:

• Life expectancy at birth, as an index of population health and longevity to HDI
• Knowledge and education, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weighting) and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (with one-third weighting).
• Standard of living, as indicated by the natural logarithm of gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity.

File:Human Development Index trends.svg

HDI trends between 1975 and 2004

OECD   Europe (not in the OECD), and CIS   Latin America and the Caribbean   East Asia

Arab League   South Asia   Sub-Saharan Africa

This methodology was used by the UNDP until their 2011 report.

The formula defining the HDI is promulgated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In general, to transform a raw variable, say $x$, into a unit-free index between 0 and 1 (which allows different indices to be added together), the following formula is used:

• $x\text{ index}=\frac{x-a}{b-a}$

where $a$ and $b$ are the lowest and highest values the variable $x$ can attain, respectively.

The Human Development Index (HDI) then represents the uniformly weighted sum with 1⁄3 contributed by each of the following factor indices:

• Life Expectancy Index $=\frac{\text{LE}-25}{85-25}=\frac{\text{LE}-25}{60}$
• Education Index $=\frac{2}{3}\times \text{ALI}+\frac{1}{3}\times \text{GEI}$
  • Adult Literacy Index (ALI) $=\frac{\text{ALR}-0}{100-0}=\frac{\text{ALR}}{100}$
  • Gross Enrollment Index (GEI) $=\frac{\text{CGER}-0}{100-0}=\frac{\text{CGER}}{100}$
• GDP $=\frac{\log (\text{GDPpc})-\log (100)}{\log (40000)-\log (100)}=\frac{\log (\text{GDPpc})-\log (100)}{\log (400)}$

2023 Human Development Index (2025 report)

World map

Average annual HDI growth from 2010 to 2023 (published in 2025)Template:Legend-col

The Human Development Report 2025 by the United Nations Development Programme was released on 6 May 2025; the report calculates HDI values based on data collected in 2023.

Ranked from 1 to 74 in the year 2023, the following countries are considered to be of "very high human development":

Template:Sronly

Rank		Country or territory	HDI
2023 data (2025 report)Template:Zero width space	Change since 2015Template:Zero width space		2023 data (2025 report)Template:Zero width space	Average annual growth (2010–2023)Template:Zero width space
1	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Iceland	0.972	Template:Sort
2	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Norway	0.970	Template:Sort
	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Switzerland		Template:Sort
4	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Denmark	0.962	Template:Sort
5	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Germany	0.959	Template:Sort
	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Sweden		Template:Sort
7	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Australia	0.958	Template:Sort
8	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Netherlands	0.955	Template:Sort
	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Hong Kong		Template:Sort
10	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Belgium	0.951	Template:Sort
11	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Ireland	0.949	Template:Sort
12	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Finland	0.948	Template:Sort
13	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Singapore	0.946	Template:Sort
	Template:Sort	Template:Country data United Kingdom		Template:Sort
15	Template:Sort	Template:Country data United Arab Emirates	0.940	Template:Sort
16	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Canada	0.939	Template:Sort
17	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Liechtenstein	0.938	Template:Sort
	Template:Sort	Template:Country data New Zealand		Template:Sort
	Template:Sort	Template:Country data United States		Template:Sort
20	Template:Sort	Template:Country data South Korea	0.937	Template:Sort
21	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Slovenia	0.931	Template:Sort
22	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Austria	0.930	Template:Sort
23	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Japan	0.925	Template:Sort
24	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Malta	0.924	Template:Sort
25	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Luxembourg	0.922	Template:Sort
26	Template:Sort	Template:Country data France	0.920	Template:Sort
27	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Israel	0.919	Template:Sort
28	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Spain	0.918	Template:Sort
29	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Czechia	0.915	Template:Sort
	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Italy		Template:Sort
	Template:Sort	Template:Country data San Marino		Template:Sort
32	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Andorra	0.913	Template:Sort
	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Cyprus		Template:Sort
34	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Greece	0.908	Template:Sort
35	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Poland	0.906	Template:Sort
36	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Estonia	0.905	Template:Sort
37	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Saudi Arabia	0.900	Template:Sort
38	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Bahrain	0.899	Template:Sort
39	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Lithuania	0.895	Template:Sort
40	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Portugal	0.890	Template:Sort
41	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Croatia	0.889	Template:Sort
	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Latvia		Template:Sort
43	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Qatar	0.886	Template:Sort
44	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Slovakia	0.880	Template:Sort
45	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Chile	0.878	Template:Sort
46	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Hungary	0.870	Template:Sort
47	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Argentina	0.865	Template:Sort
48	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Montenegro	0.862	Template:Sort
	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Uruguay		Template:Sort
50	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Oman	0.858	Template:Sort
51	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Turkey	0.853	Template:Sort
52	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Kuwait	0.852	Template:Sort
53	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Antigua and Barbuda	0.851	Template:Sort
54	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Seychelles	0.848	Template:Sort
55	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Bulgaria	0.845	Template:Sort
	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Romania		Template:Sort
57	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Georgia	0.844	Template:Sort
58	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Saint Kitts and Nevis	0.840	Template:Sort
59	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Panama	0.839	Template:Sort
60	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Brunei	0.837	Template:Sort
	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Kazakhstan		Template:Sort
62	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Costa Rica	0.833	Template:Sort
	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Serbia		Template:Sort
64	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Russia	0.832	Template:Sort
65	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Belarus	0.824	Template:Sort
66	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Bahamas	0.820	Template:Sort
67	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Malaysia	0.819	Template:Sort
68	Template:Sort	Template:Country data North Macedonia	0.815	Template:Sort
69	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Barbados	0.811	Template:Sort
	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Armenia		Template:Sort
71	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Albania	0.810	Template:Sort
72	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Trinidad and Tobago	0.807	Template:Sort
73	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Mauritius	0.806	Template:Sort
74	Template:Sort	Template:Country data Bosnia and Herzegovina	0.804	Template:Sort

Past top countries

The list below displays the top-ranked country from each year of the Human Development Index. Norway has been ranked the highest sixteen times, Canada eight times, and Switzerland, Japan, and Iceland have each ranked twice.

In each original HDI

The year represents the time period from which the statistics for the index were derived. In parentheses is the year when the report was published. Template:Columns-list Template:Break

Geographical coverage

The HDI has extended its geographical coverage: David Hastings, of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, published a report geographically extending the HDI to 230+ economies, whereas the UNDP HDI for 2009 enumerates 182 economies and coverage for the 2010 HDI dropped to 169 countries.

Country/region specific HDI lists

• Afghan regions
• Angolan provinces
• African countries
• Albanian counties
• Algerian regions
• Argentine provinces
• Armenian provinces
• Australian states and territories
• Austrian states
• Azerbaijani regions
• Baltic regions
• Bangladeshi districts and divisions
• Belgian provinces
• Bolivian departments
• Bosnia and Herzegovina regions
• Brazilian states
• Canadian provinces and territories
• Chilean regions
• Chinese administrative divisions
• Colombian departments
• Croatian counties
• Danish regions
• Dutch provinces
• Egyptian governorates
• Ethiopian regions
• European countries
• Finnish regions
• French regions
• German states
• Georgian regions
• Greek regions
• Indian states
• Tamil Nadu districts (India)
• Indonesian provinces
• Iranian provinces
• Iraqi governorates
• Italian regions
• Kazakhstan regions
• Japanese prefectures
• Jordanian governorates
• Latin American countries
• Malaysian states
• Mexican states
• Myanmar administrative divisions
• Nepalese provinces
• New Zealand regions
• Nigerian states
• Norwegian regions
• Pakistani administrative units
• Philippine provinces
• Palestinian regions
• Polish voivodeships
• Romanian regions
• Russian federal subjects
• Serbian Regions
• South African provinces
• South Korean regions
• Spanish communities
• Swedish regions
• Syrian governorates
• Swiss regions
• Thai regions
• Turkish regions
• UK regions
• Ukrainian regions
• U.S. states (American Human Development Report (AHDR))
• Venezuelan states
• Vietnamese regions

Criticism

File:Per-capita-co-emissions-vs-human-development-index.svg

HDI in relation to consumption-based Template:Chem2 emissions per capita

The Human Development Index has been criticized on a number of grounds, including focusing exclusively on national performance and ranking, lack of attention to development from a global perspective, measurement error of the underlying statistics, and on the UNDP's changes in formula which can lead to severe misclassification of "low", "medium", "high" or "very high" human development countries.

There have also been various criticism towards the lack of consideration regarding sustainability (which later got addressed by the planetary pressures-adjusted HDI), social inequality (which got addressed by the inequality-adjusted HDI), unemployment or democracy.

Sources of data error

Economists Hendrik Wolff, Howard Chong and Maximilian Auffhammer discuss the HDI from the perspective of data error in the underlying health, education and income statistics used to construct the HDI. They have identified three sources of data error which are: (i) data updating, (ii) formula revisions and (iii) thresholds to classify a country's development status. They conclude that 11%, 21% and 34% of all countries can be interpreted as currently misclassified in the development bins due to the three sources of data error, respectively. Wolff, Chong and Auffhammer suggest that the United Nations should discontinue the practice of classifying countries into development bins because the cut-off values seem arbitrary, and the classifications can provide incentives for strategic behavior in reporting official statistics, as well as having the potential to misguide politicians, investors, charity donors and the public who use the HDI at large.

In 2010, the UNDP reacted to the criticism by updating the thresholds to classify nations as low, medium, and high human development countries. In a comment to The Economist in early January 2011, the Human Development Report Office responded to an article published in the magazine on 6 January 2011 which discusses the Wolff et al. paper. The Human Development Report Office states that they undertook a systematic revision of the methods used for the calculation of the HDI, and that the new methodology directly addresses the critique by Wolff et al. in that it generates a system for continuously updating the human-development categories whenever formula or data revisions take place.

In 2013, Salvatore Monni and Alessandro Spaventa emphasized that in the debate of GDP versus HDI, it is often forgotten that these are both external indicators that prioritize different benchmarks upon which the quantification of societal welfare can be predicated. The larger question is whether it is possible to shift the focus of policy from a battle between competing paradigms to a mechanism for eliciting information on well-being directly from the population.

See also

• Corruption Perceptions Index
• Gender Inequality Index
• International development
• Legatum Prosperity Index
• List of sovereign states by percentage of population living in poverty
• OECD Better Life Index (BLI)
• Right to an adequate standard of living
• Social Progress Index
• Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
• Where-to-be-born Index
• World Happiness Report

External links

• Human Development Index
• Human Development Tools and Rankings