November 2nd Class Essay

11/2 Essay: Since this is a course on human development, I think you should be aware there exists a “Human Development Index (HDI)”. This index attempts to quantify the level of human development of a country. It was developed by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq and Indian Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) compiles the HDI of 189 countries in their annual Human Development Report. You can see the latest rankings here. It attempts to place people at the center of the development process in terms of economic debate, policy, and advocacy and is framed in terms of whether people are able to “be” and “do” desirable things in life. The indicators used in the 2020 report were life expectancy at birth, expected years of schooling for children, mean years of schooling for adults, and gross national income per capita. These indicators are used to create a health index, an education index, and an income index, each with a value between 0 and 1. Read this for an overview.Do you think additional information or data could be added to the HDI calculation to possibly improve it or make it a more accurate measurement of human development? If yes, what things? If no, why no? Keep in mind the conversation with Tyler Cowen. You have until 10:05.

I think that the human development index calculation isn’t perfect and certainly could include additional information. For example, I think that it would be beneficial to use information regarding gender equality as a measure of human development. Gender equality is an important measure of human development because if women and men are not treated equally in a country nor have the same rights, then women aren’t truly allowed to “be” and “do” desirable things in life because there are limitations on their capabilities or rights. Even though a separate index was created to address this concern and measure gender inequality in countries, because this number is not included in the Human Development Index, gender equality isn’t at all being factored into how developed a country is. This is the same situation as with which countries have higher ecological footprints. I think that there should also be a factor included in the index that is a measure of discrimination against minority groups in the country, such as people of color, religious minorities, disabled people, and queer people, to name a few. Measures such as health index, education index, and income index don’t say anything about how the people in the country. In my opinion, how a country treats minority groups within the country is a big tell of whether or not the country has truly developed socially, not just economically or healthwise. Without fair treatment of all individuals in a country, it is impossible for everyone to have a desirable life, which is a marker of development.

In response to this, some might argue that including so many factors in the calculation of the Human Development Index might make the data more confusing or less telling of how countries are progressing economically or in other often-measured ways, such as education level. However, if we don’t stop to consider the factors that measure how people are treated in a country, we will never truly be able to see whether a country is more developed in relation to another. Without the additional factors that I have mentioned (gender equality measurements, ecological footprint measurements, and treatment of minority groups measurements), the HDI will be missing key factors that are important to measuring a countries development.