Correlates of Human Development Index in Low, Medium, High and Very High Human Developed Nations

• Author: REHAN AHMAD KHAN SHERWANI, SHAHID KAMAL AND SHUMAILA ABBAS

Abstract

Now days, Human Development Index (HDI) has turned into an orthodox symbol for regional and national growth of a country as well as the widely used multidimensional welfare measure. A yearly ranking of 188 associated countries on HDI in human development report published by United Nations is a zealously awaited episode that gets significant media attention and public response. Unfortunately, many developing countries still consider GDP or wealth as an indicator for its economic and social growth and focused only on its development while developed countries focused on the development and well-being of their public in terms of their better education and quality of life.

In present research, correlates of HDI were explored in very high, high, medium and low human development countries and the findings of the research will be beneficial for the policy makers to keep concentrate on the associated factors with HDI in order to increase the human development index of their country e.g., life expectancy at birth, women empowerment, average years of schooling for male, public health expenditures, public expenditures on education, total tax revenues, research and development expenditures, taxes on income, profit and capital gain, domestic credit provided by financial sector, labour force participation rate, employment to population ratio, private capital flows, net migration rate, international student mobility and unemployment benefits recipients are positively associated with human development index in very high human development index countries.

In addition, factors that are inversely related with HDI in very high human development index nations are average annual GDI growth, female and male adult mortality rate, external debt stock, total debt service, infant’s mortality due to outdoor pollution, employment in agriculture, youth unemployment, male and female domestic workers and child labour.

Keywords: Human development index, GDP, Life expectancy, Quality of Life, Human inequality

1. INTRODUCTION

   Now a day, human development index (HDI) is used as a sign for fiscal and societal progress of a country as earlier GDP serves the purpose [Mariano et al., 2015]. In spite of the fact that financial development, expanding exchange and speculation, innovative progress - are critical, yet advancement prepares tend to concentrate on more individuals instead of simple monetary development of any country or state altogether [Atkinson et al., 2016]. Along these lines, center has moved to human development (HD), which is about individuals, about growing their decisions to live full and innovative lives with flexibility and poise. The idea of human development has wide acknowledgment among academicians, analysts, organizers, decision makers and is similarly acknowledged among developing and developed nations (Madan, 2012).

   In addition, high GDP of a country does not ensure the good quality of life and social development in the country as GDP is certainly just a single component of one’s life that upgrades financial prosperity [Chatterjee, 2005]. Consequently, for cross country comparisons per capita income will be misleading as a meter of well-being across the diverse societies [Foster et al., 2005]. This has been explicitly perceived and is surely the method of reasoning behind the advancement of more powerful measures of prosperity, for example, e.g. the Human Development Index (HDI) of the United Nations [UNDP, 1990].

   HDI is ascertained on the premise of three elements life span, access to information and way of life [UNDP, 1990] The HDI serves as a reference tool for both social and monetarist advancement. It is an instrument used for checking long haul advance in a nation's normal level of human improvement in three fundamental measurements: an elongated and sound lifespan, access to information and a respectable way of life. The HDI was acquainted in 1990 with stress that individuals and their abilities ought to be definitive criteria for surveying the improvement of a nation, not simply monetary development. The incorporation of education and wellbeing markers is an indication of fruitful government approaches in giving access to vital legitimacy merchandise, for example, human services, sanitation and education [UNDP, 2015].

   It might be brought up that HDI is not the primary endeavor to swap the per capita GNP [Hou et al., 2015; Ustubici, 2012]. Actually, a prior endeavor to total three human markers (literacy, infant mortality and life expectancy at year one) into a solitary list is the Physical Quality of Life (Chawdhary, 1991; Morris, 1979; Stewart, 2006). This method includes the quantity of life but not the quality of life. Moreover infant mortality and life expectancy are highly correlated variables [Murray, 1988]. In contrary to this, HDI covers all these issues and embrace the quantitative as well as qualitative aspects of life [Rodionova and Gordeeva, 2010]. To achieve the economic growth any country must need to set a threshold of human development as a prerequisite because it determines the consistent growth for society.

   The United Nations classifies countries as having a low, medium, high or very high human development index (UNDP 2014). These countries have different infrastructure, political system, social development and many other factors that might affect directly or indirectly human development in the country. In present study, we explore the possible associated factors of HDI among high developed nations to low developed nation. The outcomes of the study will be helpful for the low developed nations to identify the shortcomings in their policies that obstacle them to be in among the high developed nations. By concentrating on the factors associated with higher HDI low developed nations can improve human development index.

2. MATERIALS AND METHODS

   The data used in the present research was a secondary data obtained from United Nations Development Report published in 2015 (UNDP 2015). The primary variable of interest was HDI that quantifies human development by taking literacy rate and school enlistment as a measure of knowledge, life expectancy as a tool of long and healthy life, furthermore, per capita GDP in view of buying force equality as a measure of material richness level. So HDI was comprised of three components; longevity, education level and decent standard of living. These three components were computed as:

   (Equations)

   HDI is simply the average of (2.1), (2.2) and (2.3) i.e.,

   HDI = LEI+ EI+ GDPI/3 ---------(2.4)

   In present data HDI was calculated from 188 countries (very high 49, high 56, medium 39 and low 44) and the classifications of HDI were based on the quartiles of the HDI distribution. For low human development countries HDI was below 0.550; medium human development 0.550-0.699; high human development 0.700-0.799 and for very high human development countries value of HDI was atleast 0.800. Pearson and Spearman’s correlation coefficient were used to measure the relationship between HDI and other factors in low human development countries – very high human development countries. All the data were analyzed in SPSS v 24.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

   HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX AND ITS CONSTITUENTS

   Life expectancy at nascence is the numeral years of a neonatal who might live when usual forms of age-specific mortality rates at the time of nascence prevail in a similar fashion and has high significant positive relationship with HDI in very high human development index countries (r = 0.720, pandlt;0.01); significant positive relationship (r = 0.327, pandlt;0.05) in low HDI countries while no significant relationship in high HDI and low HDI countries exist. Estimated years of schooling is the amount of years of education that a kid of school entering age can presume to have when usual forms of age-specific admission rates and has highly significant positive relationship with HDI (pandlt;0.01) in all four classifications of HDI countries.

   Mean years of schooling is the average amount of years of schooling taken by individuals of ages 25 and older, transformed from education accomplishment stages spending certified intervals of each level and found highly significantly positively related with HDI in very high human development countries (r = 0.661, pandlt;0.01) followed by medium human development countries (r = 0.639, pandlt;0.01), low HDI countries (r = 0.607, pandlt;0.01) and high human development countries (r = 0.442, pandlt;0.01). Gross national income (GNI) per capita is the collective sources of an economy spawned by its making and its possession of elements of production, minus the expenditures on aspects of production possessed by the rest of the world also has significant positive relationships (pandlt;0.01) with HDI in all the four types of human development countries. HDI is inversely significantly related with average annual GDI growth (2010-2014) in only very high human...