1.
Mongolia is land locked country between Russia and
China. Its population is 3.3 million in 2018. Territory
of Mongolia is 1564.1 thousand square kilometers
and population density is 2.0 persons per square
kilometer. In 2018, GDP per capita reaches 10,226.9
thousand Mongolian National Tugrug (approximately
USD 4200).
Human Capital
World Bank has introduced its concept of human
capital in World Development Report 2019: The
changing nature of work. Human capital consists of
the knowledge, skills, and health that people
accumulate over their lives, enabling them to realize
their potential as productive members of society”.
Mostly those components of the human capital are
acquired through education and learning. For
individuals, an additional year of schooling and
quality of learning generate higher earnings and
better life on average. In addition to that, developing
socio‐emotional skills, such as an aptitude for
teamwork, empathy, conflict resolution, relationship
management and other cognitive skills enlarges a
person’s human capital. Lastly, healthy people are
more productive. Therefore, health is one of
important components of the human capital. In
general terms, high human capital produces large
economic return to individuals and as well as to a
county’s economy and development, as identified
current surveys in the world.
Human Capital Index
The Human Capital Index (HCI) measures the amount
of human capital that a child born today can expect
to attain by age 18. It conveys the productivity of the
next generation of workers compared to a
benchmark of complete education and full health.
Components of the HCI
The HCI quantifies the key stages in this trajectory
and their consequences for the productivity of the
next generation of workers, with these three
components:
Component 1: Survival from birth to school age,
measured using under‐5 mortality rates.
Component 2: Expected Years of Learning‐Adjusted
School, combining information on the quantity and
quality of education. The quantity of education is
measured as the expected number of years of school
a child can expect to attain by age 18 given the
prevailing pattern of enrollment rates across grades.
The quality of education reflects ongoing work at the
World Bank to harmonize test scores from major
international student achievement testing programs.
These are combined into a measure of learning‐
adjusted school years using the “learning‐adjusted
years of school” conversion metric proposed in the
2018 World Development Report.
Component 3: Health. In the absence of a single
broadly‐accepted, directly‐measured, and widely‐
available metric, the overall health environment is
captured by two proxies: (i) adult survival rates,
defined as the fraction of 15‐year olds that survive
until age 60, and (ii) the rate of stunting for children
under age 5. Adult survival rates are calculated by the
UN Population Division for all countries, and can be
interpreted as a proxy for the range of fatal and non‐
fatal health outcomes that a child born today would
experience as an adult if current conditions prevail
into the future. Stunting is broadly accepted as a
proxy for the pre‐natal, infant and early childhood
health environment, and so summarizes the risks to
good health that children born today are likely to
experience in their early years – with important
consequences for health and well‐being in
adulthood. Data on the prevalence of stunting is
reported in the WHO‐UNICEF‐World Bank Joint
Malnutrition Estimates.
Human capital in Mongolia
2. HCI of Mongolia
In 2018, the World Bank estimated the HCI among
157 countries in the World. It is made up of five
indicators: the probability of survival to age five, a
child’s expected years of schooling, harmonized test
scores as a measure of quality of learning, adult
survival rate (fraction of 15‐year olds that will survive
to age 60), and the proportion of children who are
not stunted.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/data/interactive/20
18/10/18/human‐capital‐index‐and‐components‐
2018
Source: The World Bank. Human Capital Project.
Mongolia has been ranked 51 out of 157 countries in
the World. Its HCI is 0.63 which means a child born in
Mongolia today will be 63.0 percent as productive
when she or he grows up as s/he could be if s/he
enjoyed complete education and full health.
Comparing to countries in Lower Middle Income
category, Mongolia is quite well according to HCI
estimation and even a bit better than average HCI in
countries of Upper Middle Income.
One of most important ingredients of the HCI and
new Social Contract is early childhood development,
especially early learning from age 2 to 5. In Mongolia,
access of preschool education is still limited. The
government announces that number of preschool
education institutions are increasing, number of
alternative mode of training is being introduced and
enrolment of preschool school is increasing
dramatically. However, calculated gross enrolment
rate of preschool education based on number of
children aged 2‐5 and statistical data on preschool
enrolment of the same age, has shown negative
pattern. Due to population growth, cross enrolment
ratio is decreasing in Mongolia.
Calculated based on population and enrolment data.
Source NSO, Mongolia.
As conclusion, In‐order to build human capital,
Mongolian Government need to pay serious
attention and investment into access and quality of
early child learning and education which is most
essential component of the Human Capital.
Indicator Mongolia
Low
Income
Lower
Middle
Income
Upper Middle
Income
High
Income
HCI Component 1: Survival
Probability of Survival to Age 5 0.983 0.929 0.961 0.983 0.995
HCI Component 2: School
Expected Years of School 13.6 7.8 10.4 11.7 13.3
Harmonized Test Scores 435 363 391 428 506
HCI Component 3: Health
Survival Rate from Age 15‐60 0.791 0.745 0.807 0.863 0.923
Fraction of Children Under 5 Not Stunted 0.892 0.658 0.730 0.869 0.935
Human Capital Index (HCI) 0.63 0.38 0.48 0.58 0.74
75.3% 74.3%
76.5%
64.9%
66.1%
75.7% 75.0%
77.3%
65.5% 66.4%
55.0%
60.0%
65.0%
70.0%
75.0%
80.0%
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Gross enrolment rate of pre‐
school education in Mongolia
total girl
This artifact was prepared by a participant of MOOC on
The Future of Work: Preparing for Disruption, as course
assignment.
