What is the Human Development Index (HDI)?
Q: What is the Human Development Index (HDI)?
A: The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living for countries worldwide. It is used to distinguish whether the country is a developed, a developing or an under-developed country, and also to measure the effect of economic policies on quality of life.
Q: Who developed the HDI?
A: The HDI was developed in 1990 by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq and Indian economist Amartya Sen.
Q: How many countries are included in this list?
A: This list includes 187 member states of the United Nations (out of 193), along with Hong Kong (of the People's Republic of China), and the Palestinian territories; 6 UN member states are not included because there is not enough data.
Q: How are countries categorized according to their HDI?
A: Countries fall into four wide human development categories: Very High Human Development (66 countries), High Human Development (53 countries), Medium Human Development (37 countries) and Low Human Development (36 countries).
Q: What was referred to as "high human development" before 2007?
A: Before 2007, "high human development" was referred to as developed countries, while all other categories were grouped in developing countries.
Q: What index has replaced GDP per capita for categorizing nations?
A: The original "high human development" category has been split into two as above in the report for 2007. Some older groupings that have been removed were based on gross domestic product (GDP) in purchasing power parity per capita, and have been replaced by another index based on gross national income (GNI) in purchasing power parity per capita.
