Limits of the HDI and the companion indices

Detail

1. Why the HDI is not enough

• Human Development Index (HDI): the UNDP's summary score from 0 to 1. It combines three things: a long and healthy life (health), knowledge (education) and a decent standard of living (income).
• Main limit (NCERT): the HDI measures average attainment, meaning what a country has achieved on average. It says nothing about distribution, meaning how that achievement is shared among people. So NCERT says it is not the most reliable measure of human development.
• Two countries can have the same HDI.

• In one, gains may be spread evenly. In the other, a small rich group may hold most of them.

• Other critiques:

• National averages hide regional gaps. One number for India hides the gap between Kerala and Bihar, between cities and villages, and between social groups.
• The goalposts are arbitrary. Goalposts are the minimum and maximum values the UNDP picks to turn each indicator into a 0-1 score. Change the goalposts and the scores and ranks change too.
• No human rights or security dimension. Freedom, political participation, personal safety and conflict are left out, even though Haq and Sen saw them as central to "enlarging people's choices".

• The environment is left out. A country can score high while using up the planet's resources. The PHDI (2020) was built to deal with this (see section 5).

• India in the latest HDR: in HDR 2025 (data year 2023), India ranked 130 of 193 countries. Its HDI rose from 0.676 (2022) to 0.685 (2023). This keeps it in the medium human development group, just below the 0.700 line for "high" (verify current) [2].

2. Human Poverty Index (HPI), 1997-2009

• Human Poverty Index: an index linked to the HDI. It measured the shortfall, meaning the people left behind, not the average reached (NCERT).
• HPI-1 was the version for developing countries. It had four parts:
• the chance of not surviving to age 40
• adult illiteracy rate
• share of people without safe drinking water

• share of underweight children

• Weakness: it used national averages for each deprivation separately. So it could not show whether the same household suffered several problems at once.

• In 2010 it was replaced by the MPI.

3. Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), 2010 onward

• Multidimensional Poverty Index: measures poverty as many problems (deprivations) faced by the same person at the same time, not just low income.
• It was built by the UNDP with OPHI (Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, University of Oxford) and first published in the HDR 2010.

Structure of the Global MPI: 3 dimensions with equal weight, 10 indicators

Dimension	Indicators
Health	Nutrition, child mortality
Education	Years of schooling, school attendance
Living standards	Cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, assets

• The poverty line (cut-off): a person is multidimensionally poor if they are deprived in one-third or more of the weighted indicators.
• Each household is checked on all 10 indicators.
• The weights of the indicators it lacks are added up.

• If the total is 33.3% or more, everyone in that household counts as poor.

• Global MPI 2025 (title "Overlapping Hardships: Poverty and Climate Hazards"):

• 1.1 billion of 6.3 billion people live in acute multidimensional poverty, and over half of them are children. The report covers 109 countries [3][4].
• 887 million poor people (nearly 8 in 10) are directly exposed to at least one climate hazard: extreme heat, flooding, drought or air pollution [4].
• 651 million poor people face two or more hazards [4].
• Almost half of the world's MPI-poor live in just six middle-income countries: Bangladesh, China, India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Tanzania [4].

India's National MPI (NITI Aayog)

• It has 12 indicators: the 10 global ones plus maternal health (health) and bank account (living standards).
• Data come from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS).
• Multidimensional poverty fell from about 25% (NFHS-4, 2015-16) to about 15% (NFHS-5, 2019-21) (verify current).
• Regional pattern: Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh have the highest shares of MPI-poor. Kerala has the lowest. This is a clear case of a national average hiding regional gaps.

4. Inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI), 2010

• Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index: the HDI after each dimension (health, education, income) is cut down by how unequally it is shared among people.
• If everyone has equal health, education and income, IHDI = HDI.

• The more unequal the society, the further the IHDI falls below the HDI.

• Loss to inequality = the % gap between HDI and IHDI.

• India: inequality cuts India's HDI by 30.7% (HDR 2025), one of the highest losses in its region. Health and education inequality have improved, but income and gender gaps are still large [2]. (NCERT-era estimate: about a third.)

5. Gender and planet indices

Gender Development Index (GDI)

• Definition: female HDI ÷ male HDI.
• 1 = parity (equal).

• Below 1 = women are behind men.

• India is well below 1. The main reason is the income gap, since women earn far less than men.

Gender Inequality Index (GII), 2010

• Definition: measures the human development lost because of inequality between women and men. 0 = full equality and 1 = worst inequality. Note that this is the opposite direction to the GDI.
• Three dimensions:
• Reproductive health: maternal mortality ratio, adolescent birth rate
• Empowerment: share of seats in parliament, population with at least secondary education

• Labour market: labour-force participation rate

• India (HDR 2025): ranked 102nd of 193 on the GII. Female labour-force participation (age 15+) was 35.1%, against 76.4% for men [2].

Planetary pressures-adjusted HDI (PHDI), 2020

• Definition: the HDI lowered according to a country's CO₂ emissions per person and material footprint per person. Material footprint means the raw materials (metals, fossil fuels, biomass, minerals) a country uses for its consumption.
• Effect: rich, high-consuming countries fall in rank, for example Norway, Australia and the Gulf states (oil-rich West Asian countries such as Qatar and the UAE).
• Why it was built: high human development has so far come at the cost of the planet.

6. Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI), 1979: an HDI forerunner

• Built by Morris D. Morris (1979) for the Overseas Development Council (USA).
• Definition: a simple average of three indicators, each scaled 0-100:
• literacy rate
• infant mortality rate

• life expectancy at age one

• It leaves out income on purpose. It measures results (health, literacy), not means (money).

• Link to the HDI: like the HDI, it moved attention from GDP to people's lives. The HDI (1990) later added income back.

7. The indices compared

Index	Year	What it measures	Scale / meaning	Builder
PQLI	1979	Literacy, IMR, life expectancy at 1	0-100, higher = better	Morris D. Morris
HDI	1990	Health, education, income (average)	0-1, higher = better	UNDP
HPI	1997-2009	Shortfall in human development	% deprived	UNDP
MPI	2010	Overlapping deprivations (10 indicators)	Poor if ≥ 1/3 deprived	UNDP + OPHI
IHDI	2010	HDI cut down for inequality	Gap = loss to inequality	UNDP
GDI	1995 (revised 2014)	Female HDI ÷ male HDI	1 = parity	UNDP
GII	2010	Gender gap in health, empowerment, work	0 = equality	UNDP
PHDI	2020	HDI cut down for CO₂ and material footprint	Lower than HDI	UNDP

Prelims Hooks

• The HPI (1997-2009) was replaced by the MPI (2010), built by the UNDP with OPHI, University of Oxford.
• HPI-1 used survival to age 40, not age 60 (a common trap).
• Global MPI: 3 dimensions, 10 indicators. A person is poor if deprived in ≥ one-third of weighted indicators. NITI Aayog's National MPI: 12 indicators, adding maternal health and bank account.
• The GDI uses 1 = parity. The GII uses 0 = equality. Do not mix up the two directions.
• GII dimensions: reproductive health (MMR, adolescent births), empowerment (parliament seats, secondary education), labour market (LFPR). The GII has no income indicator.
• PHDI (2020) adjusts the HDI for CO₂ per person and material footprint. Norway, Australia and the Gulf states lose rank.
• PQLI (Morris, 1979): literacy + infant mortality + life expectancy at age one, each 0-100. It has no income indicator.
• HDR 2025: India ranked 130/193, HDI 0.685. Inequality loss is 30.7%. GII rank is 102 [2].
• Global MPI 2025: 1.1 billion of 6.3 billion people are poor. About 887 million of them are exposed to climate hazards [3][4].

Mains Points

• The HDI averages hide distribution. India's IHDI loss of 30.7% (HDR 2025), its large income and gender gaps, and the gap between Bihar, Jharkhand and UP at one end and Kerala at the other on the National MPI all show why states and districts, not just the national average, should guide planning. Policy responses: aspirational districts, state-level MPI targeting [2].
• Poverty has many sides. The MPI's overlapping deprivations (cooking fuel, sanitation, housing, nutrition) match India's scheme design, such as the clean-fuel, toilet, housing, nutrition and bank-account programmes. The fall from about 25% (2015-16) to about 15% (2019-21) shows such schemes can work across several indicators together.
• Gender is the weakest link (GS-I society). A GDI well below 1, a GII rank of 102, and female LFPR of 35.1% against 76.4% for men point to women's low paid work as the main brake on India's human development [2].
• Sustainability (GS-III). The PHDI and the Global MPI 2025 climate–poverty overlap (887 million poor exposed to hazards) show that human development and environmental pressure must be measured together. This favours low-carbon development paths for countries like India [4].