This document discusses various indicators used to measure development. It begins by outlining economic, political, social, and subjective indicators. It then categorizes indicators as economic, educational, health-related, composite, and gender-related. Composite indicators like the Human Development Index and Gender Empowerment Index combine individual indicators, while single indicators measure one thing like child mortality. Commonly used indicators include GNP, HDI, and poverty rates. The document also discusses indicators for education, health, and gender inequality.

1. Dr. Rajeev Kumar
MSW (TISS, Mumbai), M.Phil, (CIP, Ranchi), UGC-JRF.,
Ph.D., IIT Kharagpur
E-mail: rajeev.iit.78@gmail.com

2.  There are hundreds of economic, political and
social indicators of development,
 ranging from ‘Hard’ economic indicators such
as Gross National Income (and all its
variations), to various poverty and economic
inequality indicators, to the Sustainable
Development Goals,
 which focus much more on social indicators
of development such as education and health,
 all the way down to much more subjective
development indicators such as happiness.

3.  The most commonly used indicators collected
by some of the major development
institutions, both multilateral agencies such
as the World Bank, as well as NGOS.
 The indicators you need to know for the
‘indicators of development topic – most
obviously GNP, the HDI and the MDGs.
 Other indicators which are useful to know for
different sub-topics within the global
development course (health, education,
gender, conflict, the environment etc…)

4.  Economic development indicators
 Educational development indicators
 Health related development indicators
 Composite development indicators
 Gender related development indicators

5.  Composite Versus ‘Single Variable’ Indicators
 Some of the indicators above are ‘composite’
indicators – which are formed when individual
indicators are combined into a single index,
giving countries a simplified score, such as
the Human Development Index, the Gender
Empowerment Index and the Global Peace
Index;
 others are ‘single variable’ indicators – such
as the Child Mortality Rate, which just
measure one thing.

6.  Total nominal Gross Domestic Product
 Gross National Income per capita (PPP)
 The percentage of people living on less than
$1.25 a day
 The percentage of people living below the
poverty line within a country.
 The unemployment rate.

7.  Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
 GDP is s how much money a country makes from its
products over the course of a year, usually converted
to US Dollars:
 the sum of gross value added by all resident
producers in the economy + product taxes - any
subsidies not included in the value of the products.
 Gross National Product (GNP)
 GNP is the GDP of a nation together with any money
that has been earned by investment abroad minus the
income earned by non-nationals within the nation.

8.  The World Bank uses the following eight core indicators to
measure how developed a country is in terms of education:
 The net enrolment rate for pre-primary
 The net enrolment rate for primary*
 The net enrolment rate for secondary education
 The gross enrolment ratio for tertiary (further) education.
 Gender parity for primary education (using the gross
enrolment ratio)**
 primary completion rate for both sexes
 The total number of primary aged children who are out of
school.
 Government expenditure on education as a percentage of
GDP.

9.  The infant mortality rate.
 Maternal mortality rate
 Population growth
 Healthy life expectancy

10.  Infant mortality rate
 Infant mortality rate is the number of infants
dying before reaching one year of age per
1,000 live births in a given year.
 Birth and death rates
 Crude Birth and Death rates (per 1000) can be
used as an overall measure of the state of
healthcare and education in a country,
though these numbers do not give a full
picture of a nation’s situation.

11.  The Human Development Index score
The Human Development Index is compiled
annually by the United Nations and gives
countries a score based on GNI per capita,
number of years of actual and expected
schooling and life expectancy, or in the words
of the UN itself – the HDI is ‘A composite index
measuring average achievement in three basic
dimensions of human development—a long
and healthy life, knowledge and a decent
standard of living.’

12.  Selected Countries by Human Development Index rankings (2015)
 1st – Norway
 8th – United States
 14th – United Kingdom
 24th – Finland
 32nd – Qatar
 39th – Saudi Arabia
 55th – The United States
 56th – Saudi Arabia
 90th – China
 India – 130th
 137th- Bhutan


15.  Discuss about various component of HDI in
various countries

16.  The United Nations defines the Gender Inequality Index as ‘A composite
measure reflecting inequality in achievement between women and men
in three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment and the labour
market’.
 More specifically, it gives countries a score between 0-1 (similar to the
HDI) based on:
 The Maternal mortality ratio: Number of deaths due to pregnancy-
related causes per 100,000 live births.
 The Adolescent birth rate: Number of births to women ages 15–19 per
1,000 women ages 15–19.
 Proportion of seats held by women in the national parliament expressed
as percentage of total seats.
 The proportion of the female population compared to the male
 population with at least some secondary education
 The comparative Labour force participation rate for men and women.

17.  2015 Gender inequality index rankings
 Selected countries according to their rankings for
the Gender Inequality Index
 1st – Slovenia
 11th – Finland
 39th – The United Kingdom
 55th – The United States
 56th – Saudi Arabia
 97the – Bhutan
 127 – Ghana
 130th – India

18.  India was ranked 129 out of 189 countries on
the 2019 Human Development Index (HDI)
improving from the 130th position in 2018.
 HDI is part of the Human Development Report that
is published by the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP).
 The other indices that form the part of the 2019
Report are:
Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index
(IHDI),
 Gender Development Index (GDI),
 Gender Inequality Index (GII) and
 Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI).

19.  HDI emphasizes that people and their
capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for
assessing the development of a country, not
economic growth alone.
 HDI measures average achievement of a
country in three basic dimensions of human
development:
◦ A long and healthy life,
◦ Access to knowledge, and
◦ A decent standard of living.

21.  Top Performers in 2019
Norway, Switzerland, Ireland occupied the top
three positions in that order.
 Germany is placed fourth along with Hong Kong,
and Australia secured the fifth rank on the global
ranking.
 India’s neighbours
 Sri Lanka (71) and China (85) were higher up the
rank scale.
 Bhutan (134), Bangladesh (135), Myanmar (145),
Nepal (147), Pakistan (152) and Afghanistan
(170) were ranked lower on the list.

22.  Region Wise Performance
◦ South Asia was the fastest growing region in human
development progress witnessing a 46% growth
over 1990-2018, followed by East Asia and the
Pacific at 43%.


23.  India’s Performance
India’s HDI value increased by 50% (from
0.431 to 0.647), which places it above the
average for other South Asian countries
(0.642).
 In India, between 1990 and 2018, life
expectancy at birth increased by 11.6 years,
mean years of schooling increased by 3.5
years and expected years of schooling
increased by 4.7 years. Per capita incomes
rose by over 250%.

24.  The other indices that form the part of the
2019 Report are:
Inequality-adjusted Human Development
Index (IHDI),
 Gender Development Index (GDI),
 Gender Inequality Index (GII) and
 Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI).

25.  Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index
 The IHDI indicates percentage loss in HDI due to
inequality.
 India’s position worsened by one position to 130
(as compared to the HDI Index 2019- 129) with a
score of 0.477. Although, the IHDI score has
improved from 0.468 in 2018.
 Gender Development Index
 GDI measures disparities on the HDI by gender.
 India is only marginally better than the South
Asian average on the Gender Development Index
(0.829 vs 0.828).

26.  GII presents a composite measure of gender
inequality using three dimensions:
◦ Reproductive health,
◦ Empowerment and
◦ The labour market.
 In GII, India is at 122 out of 162
countries. Neighbours China (39), Sri Lanka (86),
Bhutan (99), Myanmar (106) were placed above
India.
 The report noted that group-based inequalities
persist, especially affecting women and girls and
no place in the world has gender equality.

27.  The report notes that the world is not on track to
achieve gender equality by 2030 as per the UN’s
Sustainable Development Goals (SDG -5). It forecasts
that it may take 202 years to close the gender gap in
economic opportunity.
 The report presents a new “social norms
index” indicating how prejudices and social beliefs
obstruct gender equality, which shows that only 14%
of women and 10% of men worldwide have no gender
bias.
 The report highlights that new forms of
inequalities will manifest in future through climate
change and technological transformation which have
the potential to deepen existing social and economic
fault lines.

28.  MPI captures the multiple deprivations that
people in developing countries face in
their health, education and standard of living.
 India accounts for 28% of the 1.3 billion
multidimensional poor.
Other indicators
 Corruption related
 Environment related indicators
 Happiness index