Composite Indicators of Development (DP IB Economics)

Revision Note

Steve Vorster

Written by: Steve Vorster

Reviewed by: Jenna Quinn

The Human Development Index (HDI)

  • Economic development is the sustainable increase in living standards for a country, typically characterised by increases in life span, education levels, & income

     

  • Composite indicators include indicators such as the Human Development Index (HDI), the Gender Inequality Index (GII), Inequality Adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI), and the Happy Planet index (HPI)
     

  • Developed by the United Nations, the Human Development Index is a combination of 3 indicators

     

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The components of the Human Development Index
 

  1. Health, as measured by the life expectancy at birth e.g.in 2019 it was 81.2 years in the UK

  2. Education, as measured by a combination of the mean years of schooling that 25 year old's have received, together with the expected years of schooling for a pre-school child

  3. Income, as measured by the real gross national income per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP)

  • Each indicator is given equal weighting in the index

  • The index ranks countries on a score between 0 & 1

    • The closer to 1, the higher the level of economic development & the better the standard of living

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The Human Development Index scores from 1990 to 2021 (Source: UNDP Data Centre)
 

  • A value of < 0.550 is considered low development e.g. Senegal was at 0.514 in 2021

  • A value of 0.550-0.699 is considered medium development e.g.Bangladesh was at 0.667 in 2021

  • A value of 0.700-0.799 is considered high development e.g Thailand was at 0.777 in 2021

  • A value ≥ 0.800 is considered very high development e.g. Austria was at 0.918 in 2021

Inequality adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI)

  • Created in 2010 to deal with the lack of information that the HDI provides on inequality

  • The IHDI will be equal to the HDI value when there is no inequality, but falls below the HDI value as inequality rises

  • This means that the IHDI measures the level of human development when inequality is accounted for

  • The difference between the HDI and IHDI can be expressed as a percentage and represents the loss in potential human development due to inequality

  • It provides greater insight into the differences in human development that exist in a country as opposed to the average human development

Gender Inequality Index (GII)

  • The Gender Inequality Index (GII) measures gender inequality using three dimensions:

    • Reproductive health

    • Empowerment

    • The labour market

  • Countries are graded on a scale of 0→1

    • The lower the value the better the inequality between men and women, and vice-versa

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Sweden, Peru and Yemen all score vastly differently on the GII index with Sweden the most equal and Yemen the least equal (Source: UNDP Data Centre)

Happy Planet Index (HPI)

  • The Happy Planet Index (HPI) attempts to measure sustainable wellbeing

  • Countries are ranked by how efficiently they deliver long, happy lives using the earth's scarce resources in a sustainable way

  • The HPI scores countries with a lower ecological footprint higher than countries with more environmental degradation

  • The HPI measures a country's progress using three variables

    • Wellbeing

    • Life expectancy

    • Ecological footprint
       

  • HPI space Score space equals space fraction numerator wellbeing space cross times space life space expectancy over denominator ecological space footprint end fraction

     

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The top 3 and bottom 3 countries on the HPI in December 2022 (Source: Happy Planet Index)

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Steve Vorster

Author: Steve Vorster

Expertise: Economics & Business Subject Lead

Steve has taught A Level, GCSE, IGCSE Business and Economics - as well as IBDP Economics and Business Management. He is an IBDP Examiner and IGCSE textbook author. His students regularly achieve 90-100% in their final exams. Steve has been the Assistant Head of Sixth Form for a school in Devon, and Head of Economics at the world's largest International school in Singapore. He loves to create resources which speed up student learning and are easily accessible by all.

Jenna Quinn

Author: Jenna Quinn

Expertise: Head of New Subjects

Jenna studied at Cardiff University before training to become a science teacher at the University of Bath specialising in Biology (although she loves teaching all three sciences at GCSE level!). Teaching is her passion, and with 10 years experience teaching across a wide range of specifications – from GCSE and A Level Biology in the UK to IGCSE and IB Biology internationally – she knows what is required to pass those Biology exams.