Human Development Report

Also called: HDR · Topic: Human Development: Concept, Approaches and Measurement · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 3 "Human Development"

Meaning

The Human Development Report (HDR) is a report that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has published every year since 1990. It ranks countries by the Human Development Index (HDI), publishes other related indices, and looks at a different theme each year.

• It matters because it judges countries by people's lives (health, education and living standard), not only by the size of their economy.
• In HDR 2025, India ranked 130 of 193, with an HDI of 0.685 [2][4].

Explanation

Origin and idea behind the report

• Mahbub ul Haq, a Pakistani economist, created the HDI in 1990. Amartya Sen worked with him.
• Sen's capability approach (the real freedoms people have to live the life they value) is the thinking behind it.
• Why it was needed:
• Income (GDP) alone does not tell us whether people live long, learn and have choices.

• So the HDR moved the focus from the size of the economy to people's lives.

• The first HDR was published by UNDP in 1990. UNDP is the UN's main development agency. It was set up in 1965 and has its headquarters in New York.

What the HDR measures: the HDI and its parts

• The HDI is one number between 0 and 1. The closer it is to 1, the higher the human development.
• It has three dimensions: health, education (knowledge) and standard of living (resources).

Dimension	NCERT-era indicator	Present indicator (since HDR 2010)
Health	Life expectancy at birth	Life expectancy at birth
Education	Adult literacy rate (age 15+) + gross enrolment ratio (GER)	Mean years of schooling (MYS, adults 25+) + Expected years of schooling (EYS, a child at school-entry age)
Living standard	Purchasing power (US $)	GNI per capita in PPP $ (2021 PPP $ in HDR 2025) [3]

• GNI (gross national income) is all income earned by a country's residents, including income earned abroad.
• PPP (purchasing power parity) converts money between currencies so that the same basket of goods costs the same everywhere. The rates come from the World Bank's International Comparison Program (ICP) [6].
• Goalposts in HDR 2025 (the fixed minimum and maximum used to turn each indicator into a 0–1 score) [3]:
• Life expectancy: 20–85 years
• EYS: 0–18 years
• MYS: 0–15 years
• GNI per capita: 100–75,000 dollars

How the score is calculated

• Step 1: turn each indicator into an index from 0 to 1. The index = (actual value − minimum) ÷ (maximum − minimum) [3].
• Education index: the simple (arithmetic) average of the MYS index and the EYS index.

• Income index: uses the natural log of income. Each extra dollar adds less than the one before it, so a rise from 1,000 to 2,000 dollars counts far more than a rise from 50,000 to 51,000 dollars [3].

• Step 2: combine the three indices. HDI = (Health × Education × Income)^(1/3). This is the geometric mean [3].

• Before 2010 the HDI was a simple average, so a strong dimension could fully make up for a weak one.

• With the geometric mean, a weak dimension cannot be fully made up for. This rewards balanced progress.

• Worked example, India in HDR 2025 (2023 data) [4][3]:

• Health: (72.0 − 20) ÷ (85 − 20) = 0.800
• Education: EYS 13.0 ÷ 18 = 0.722 and MYS 6.9 ÷ 15 = 0.460. Their average is ≈ 0.591
• Income: from GNI per capita of 9,047 dollars = ≈ 0.681
• HDI ≈ 0.685

Categories and companion indices

• Fixed cut-offs, brought in by HDR 2014 and still used in HDR 2025 [3]:
• Very high: 0.800 and above
• High: 0.700–0.799
• Medium: 0.550–0.699

• Low: below 0.550

• Other indices published with the HDR [3]:

• IHDI (Inequality-adjusted HDI): the HDI reduced for inequality inside a country
• GDI (Gender Development Index): female HDI ÷ male HDI
• GII (Gender Inequality Index): covers reproductive health, empowerment and the labour market
• MPI (Multidimensional Poverty Index)
• PHDI (Planetary pressures-adjusted HDI): the HDI reduced for CO₂ emissions per person and material footprint per person (the amount of raw material a person uses)

Where it occurs

• Who runs it: UNDP, headquartered in New York. The report has come out every year since 1990.
• Coverage: HDR 2025 ranks 193 countries. Its title is "A matter of choice: People and possibilities in the age of AI", and it uses data for 2023.
• World, top and bottom (HDR 2025) [4]:
• Top: Iceland (0.972), then Norway and Switzerland tied at 0.970
• Bottom: Somalia (rank 192, 0.404) and South Sudan (rank 193, 0.388)

• The world HDI was 0.756 and the South Asia HDI was 0.672 in 2023 [4]

• India [2][4][5]:

• Rank 130 of 193, HDI 0.685, in the medium category. It shares the rank with Bangladesh.
• India's rank rose from 133 (2022) to 130 (2023). Most of the gain came from mean years of schooling and income per person [2].

• Long-run trend: 0.446 (1990) → 0.501 (2000) → 0.590 (2010) → 0.685 (2023) [5]. That is a rise of over 53% since 1990 [2].

• India's neighbours in HDR 2025 [4]:

• China: 78 (0.797, high)
• Sri Lanka: 89 (0.776, high)
• Nepal: 145 (0.622, medium)
• Pakistan: 168 (0.544, low)

Don't confuse with

• Human Development Index (HDI): the HDI is the index (a number from 0 to 1). The HDR is the yearly report that publishes the HDI along with the IHDI, GDI, GII, MPI and PHDI and a theme.
• GDP / GNI per capita rankings: these measure income only. The HDR adds health and education, and it puts income on a log scale, so very high incomes add little.
• International Comparison Program (ICP): it produces the PPP rates and is run by the World Bank, not UNDP. The HDR only uses its results (2021 round, 176 economies) [6][7].
• Arithmetic mean vs geometric mean trap: the education index is an arithmetic mean of MYS and EYS. The final HDI is a geometric mean of the three dimension indices [3].

Prelims Hooks

• The HDR is published by UNDP (set up in 1965, headquarters in New York). The first report came out in 1990, based on the HDI created by Mahbub ul Haq with Amartya Sen.
• Present HDI indicators: life expectancy at birth, mean years of schooling (age 25+), expected years of schooling and GNI per capita (2021 PPP $ in HDR 2025) [3]. Adult literacy and GER are the old NCERT-era indicators.
• HDR 2025 goalposts: life expectancy 20–85 years, EYS 0–18, MYS 0–15, GNI 100–75,000 dollars [3].
• Category cut-offs were fixed by HDR 2014: very high ≥ 0.800, high 0.700–0.799, medium 0.550–0.699, low < 0.550 [3].
• HDR 2025: Iceland is 1st (0.972). India is 130 of 193 (0.685, medium), tied with Bangladesh. South Sudan is last (193) [4].
• South Asian order (2023), highest to lowest: Sri Lanka (89) > India = Bangladesh (130) > Nepal (145) > Pakistan (168, the only one in the low category) [4].

Mains Points

• What the HDR does well, and its limits:
• It moved the development debate from GDP to people's capabilities.
• Since 2010, the geometric mean penalises uneven progress.
• But the HDI leaves out inequality, gender gaps, freedom and environmental damage. That is why UNDP added the IHDI, GDI, GII, MPI and PHDI [3].

• National averages also hide gaps inside India, for example Kerala compared with Bihar, and tribal areas compared with the rest of the country.

• India's weak link is education:

• Health index 0.800 but MYS index only 0.460 (MYS of 6.9 years) [4][3].

• To cross the "high" line of 0.700, India needs adult education and skilling, better school quality, faster income growth per person and continued health gains. Life expectancy rose from 58.6 years in 1990 to 72 years in 2023 [2].

• Lesson from the region:

• Sri Lanka (rank 89) is in the "high" group even though its income is much lower than that of many richer countries [4].
• Bangladesh shares India's rank [4].
• Both show that spending on health and education can raise human development more than income growth alone.

Related concepts

• Human Development Index
• Life expectancy at birth
• Adult literacy rate
• Gross enrolment ratio
• Purchasing power parity
• United Nations Development Programme

Read more

• Measuring human development: the HDI and the Human Development Report