Measuring and comparing human development

The Human Development Index ranks countries by their performance in three areas:

• health: measured by life expectancy at birth;
• education: measured by adult literacy and gross enrolment ratio;
• access to resources: measured by purchasing power (in US dollars).

Each area is given a weight of 1/3, and the HDI is a score from 0 to 1. The closer to 1, the higher the level of human development.

The human poverty index looks at the other side: the shortfall, such as the chance of not living to 40, adult illiteracy, and the share of people without clean water or with underweight children. And Bhutan is the only country to officially measure progress by Gross National Happiness, putting well-being above material wealth.

Size and wealth are not everything. Smaller and poorer places can rank higher than bigger, richer ones: Sri Lanka ranks above India, and within India, Kerala performs better than richer states such as Punjab and Gujarat, because of how they spend their money.

Countries are grouped into four categories: very high, high, medium and low human development. India is in the medium group; in the 2025 Report it ranked 130 out of 193 countries.

What makes the difference? Countries with high human development invest more in social sectors (education, health) and are generally free of political turmoil. Many with low scores spend more on defence than on social sectors, and suffer from unrest, civil war, or epidemics. The lesson: people-oriented spending pays.