HPAS/Allied Mains 2022 Answer Writing Challenge Day 212: Model Answer

Question: What is Human Development Index (HDI)? Also explain the reasons for India’s Underperformance on HDI. (8 marks/ 120 words)

Answer:

The Human Development Index (HDI) measures the level and changes in quality of life by combining indicators of life expectancy, education or access to knowledge, and income or standard of living. Mahbub ul Haq and Amartya Sen, two renowned economists from Pakistan and India developed the HDI.

Dimensions of HDI

Long and Healthy Life

• Life expectancy at birth is used to calculate the dimension of a long and healthy life.
• The life expectancy at birth is a statistical measure of how long an average person is expected to live based on demographic factors such as birth year and current age.
• The life expectancy has fallen from 69.7 to 67.2 years in 2021 HDI

Education

• The expected years of schooling and the mean years of schooling are the education indicators.
• India’s expected years of schooling stand at 11.9 years, and the mean years of schooling are at 6.7 years in 2021 HDI.

Standard of Living

• The gross national income (GNI) per capita is commonly used to assess the standard of living.
• The GNP measures the total domestic and foreign output generated by a country’s residents.
• The Gross National Income (GNI) per capita level is $6,590 in 2021 HDI.

Reasons for India’s Underperformance on HDI.

1. Increasing Income Inequalities: Inequalities in income increase deficiencies in other HDI metrics of human development. In countries with substantial income disparity, intergenerational income mobility is lower. Inequality in income in our country is a burning curse that is affecting human development in the economy. For e.g. the share of income held by the richest 1% of the population is more than the income held by the poorest 40%.
2. Lack of socioeconomic safety nets: Much of India having a low development score on the HDI is because of the nation not having ‘socioeconomic safety nets’ for the urban poor. Socioeconomic safety nets are transfer programs with the aim of preventing the poor or those vulnerable to poverty from falling below a certain poverty level.
3. Lack of Health Infrastructure: India’s lack of expenditure on health accounts greatly for poor health within the nation. Only a minute 3.9% of India’s total GDP has been spent in the health sector.
4. Education: Lack of spending on education, India’s inadequate levels of education includes the lack of teachers and the number of under qualified teachers. Another reason for low literacy rate is that most families from poorer backgrounds send their kids to start working from very young ages, in order to help provide basic needs for the family.

India ranked 132^nd among 191 countries and territories on the 2021 Human Development Index (HDI). India’s latest HDI value of 0.633 places the country in the medium human development category, lower than its value of 0.645 in the 2020 report.

The falling life expectancy (69.7 to 67.2 years) was mentioned as one of the major reasons for the drop in the ranking of 2021 HDI.