UNDP's Human Development Index

In accordance with a global decline in HDI scores following the Covid-19 pandemic, India's ranking on the Human Development Index (HDI) has fallen from 130 in 2020 to 132 in 2022, according to the Human Development Report 2021–2022.

About Recent Change In HDI

• Ordinarily, it is enough to look at a country’s score on the Human Development Index (HDI) and compare it to the global average and the score of some other comparable countries.
• The HDI is a composite of three broad parameters: longevity, education, and income per capita.
• But the new set of human development Indices is to include global uncertainties in the form of the disease, wars, and environmental disruptions. The new parameters this year include:

1. HDI

2. Inequality-adjusted HDI

3. Gender Development Index

4. Gender Inequality Index

5. Multidimensional Poverty Index

6. Planetary pressures-adjusted Human Development Index

Highlights of the Report

• The HDR has been compiled since 1990 — the global HDI value has declined two years in a row, erasing the gains of the preceding five years.

• Globally, 90% of nations had a decline in their Human Development Index score between 2020 and 2021, effectively erasing much of the gains made toward the Sustainable Development Goals.
• For perspective on India’s performance and standing, it makes sense to look at China (ranked 79th), Switzerland (ranked first) as well as the world average.

1. Human Development Index

• India is ranked 132 out of 191 countries. India’s score of 0.633 is not only a long way away from the top-ranking scores — Switzerland is ranked 1 with a score of 0.962 — but also below the global average.

• In India’s case, the drop in HDI from 0.645 in 2019 to 0.633 in 2021 can be attributed to falling life expectancy — 69.7 to 67.2 years. India’s expected years of schooling stand at 11.9 years, and the mean years of schooling are at 6.7 years. The GNI per capita level is $6,590.

2. Inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI)

• The IHDI looks beyond the average achievements of a country in longevity, education, and income to show how these achievements are distributed among its residents.
• The relative difference between IHDI and HDI values is the loss due to inequality in the distribution of the HDI within the country.
• India’s HDI falls by 25% — the most among the countries mentioned in the Table — when adjusted for inequality. That’s because the share of income held by the richest 1% of the population is more than the income held by the poorest 40%. Neither China nor Switzerland is as unequal.

3. Gender Development Index (GDI)

• The GDI essentially estimates HDI values for women and men and then looks at the ratio. The closer this ratio is to 1, the smaller the gender gap between women and men in HDI terms.
• That India is behind Switzerland is hardly surprising but the more worrisome insight is that India is significantly behind the world average as well. As China’s GDI — which is higher than Switzerland’s — shows that being relatively low on overall per capita income does not bar a country from plugging the gender gap.
• From India’s perspective, the key HDI metric where women seem to lag behind men the most is the income per capita.

4. Gender Inequality Index (GII)

• The GII looks at the issue of gender inequality by preparing a composite measure using three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment, and the labour market.
• The reproductive health indicators are maternal mortality ratio and adolescent birth rate.
• The empowerment indicators are the percentage of parliamentary seats held by women and the percentage of the population with at least some secondary education by gender.
• The labour market indicator is participation in the labour force by gender.
• The key thing to remember is that a low GII value indicates low inequality between women and men, and vice-versa.
• India is quite unequal for its female citizens as shown in the table.

5. Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)

• The Multidimensional Poverty Index captures the multiple deprivations that people in developing countries face in their health, education, and standard of living.
• Population in severe multidimensional poverty refers to the percentage of the population with a deprivation score of 50 per cent or more. Similarly, “population vulnerable to multidimensional poverty” refers to the percentage of the population at risk of suffering multiple deprivations— that is, those with a deprivation score of 20–33 per cent.
• Moreover, since India has the world’s second-largest population, a high percentage of those with deprivation implies quite high numbers.
• According to UNDP’s estimates, as of 2019, India had more than 381 million who were suffering from multi-dimensional poverty. China, for reference, has just 54 million.

6. Planetary pressures-adjusted Human Development Index (PHDI)

• Planetary pressures-adjusted Human Development Index, adjusts the HDI for planetary pressures in the Anthropocene to reflect a concern for intergenerational inequality — similar to the Inequality-adjusted HDI adjustment — which is motivated by a concern for intragenerational inequality.
• The PHDI value can be interpreted as the level of human development adjusted by carbon dioxide emissions per person (production-based) and material footprint per person to account for excessive human pressure on the planet.
• India’s PHDI is much closer to the PHDIs of other countries. That’s because India’s PHDI falls far less (vis a vis India’s HDI) than other countries. This shows that if the HDI scores of some of the richer countries and countries with better HDI ranks were adjusted or corrected for the amount of per capita carbon emissions they will show a far less stellar success in human development.

Parameters where India demonstrated improvement:

• The report emphasized a few areas where India made progress.

Inequality:

• Inequality has less of an effect on human development in 2019 than it did in 2016.
• India is closing the gender disparity in human development quicker than the rest of the globe.
• The environment has suffered less as a result of this development.

Education and healthcare:

• India's investments in health and education have helped it become closer to the average level of human development around the world since 1990, according to the intergovernmental organization.

Sanitation, access to affordable clean energy, and clean water:

• The nation is making it easier to get potable water, sanitary facilities, and cheap renewable energy.

Victim population:

• The UN noted that the country's recent policy initiatives had improved the vulnerable population groups' access to social protection.

Other information

• We are not ready for climate change as a species. It claimed that the Anthropocene's recent planetary-scale changes had left mankind unprepared for a future with climate crises like fires and storms as well as other alterations.
• Insect Population Decline: Without a large number of insect pollinators, people face the impossible problem of producing large quantities of food and other agricultural items.
• Because of their diversity, ecological significance, and impact on agriculture, human health, and natural resources, insects are significant.
• All terrestrial ecosystems are biologically supported by them, and they also cycle nutrients, pollinate plants, disseminate seeds, maintain soil structure and fertility, regulate the populations of other species, and provide a significant source of food for other taxa.
• Plastics are now present everywhere, including country-sized swaths of oceanic trash, protected forests, far-off mountaintops, and people's lungs and blood.

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