Sunday, 13 Oct, 2024
By: Yash Gupte
The report attributed India's declining life expectancy from 69.7 years to 67.2 years over the survey period to the decline in HDI from 0.645 in 2019 to 0.633 in 2021.
India slipped a rank from 131 in 2020 to 132 in 2021 in a recent report released on the Human Development Index (HDI) by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The latest report is titled as Human Development Report - Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives: shaping our future in a transforming world. India's most recent HDI value of 0.633 placed it in the medium human development category, down from 0.645 in the 2020 assessment.
According to the report, more than 90% of the countries have witnessed a decline in their HDI score due to variety of factors like the covid-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war and the climate crisis in the different regions of the world. The report added that almost all countries experienced setbacks in human development in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, most low, medium and high Human Development Index (HDI) countries saw continued declines in the second year.
The report attributed India's declining life expectancy from 69.7 years to 67.2 years over the survey period to the decline in HDI from 0.645 in 2019 to 0.633 in 2021. Despite maintaining its 132nd rank in the Gender Development Index, female life expectancy fell from 71 years in the 2020 report to 68.8 years in the 2021 report. Since 1990, India's HDI value has been progressively drawing up to the global norm, suggesting a quicker rate of advancement in human development than the global average. This is the effect of the country's policy choices over time, including investments in health and education.
The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in increase in gender inequality by 6.7% globally. However, India's Gender Inequality Index value improved somewhat in the latest edition compared to the 2020 index from 0.490 to 0.493 in 2021, after gender inequality worsened between 2019 and 2020. The index assesses gender achievement disparities in three areas: reproductive health, empowerment, and labor market participation.
In case of India’s neighbors, Pakistan was ranked at the lowest at 163rd position while Sri Lanka was ranked at 73rd place, China 79th, Bhutan 127th, Bangladesh 129th, Nepal 143rd and Myanmar at 149th position on the Human development index.
The report by UNDP also stated that there has been growth in inequality among different nations. The Inequality Adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI) combines two measures of inequality: the IHDI and the overall loss in HDI as a result of inequality. The IHDI goes beyond a country's average successes in longevity, education, and income to demonstrate how these achievements are divided among its citizens. When inequality is taken into consideration, the IHDI value can be interpreted as the level of human progress. The relative difference between IHDI and HDI values is the loss due to inequality in distribution of the HDI within the country.
Source: United Nations Development Program
India had been improving its performance in terms in HDI and IHDI values over the years with effective implementation of policies aimed at bridging the inequality gap among different communities. But the scenario witnessed a change in the year 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic. The HDI value of India in 2018 and 2019 was 0.645 and it had ranked 130th on HDI in 2018 and 129th in 2019. India had moved up a rank on the list of 189 countries. But in 2020, the HDI value of India came down to 0.642 which was lower than the HDI value of 0.644 in 2017. 2021 was not a different story as the HDI value further dropped down to 0.633 which was lower than the HDI value of India in 2016. In 2016, India’s HDI value was 0.639. Similarly, India had been improving its rank in the case of IHDI value too from 0.469 in 2016 to 0.482 in 2019 but the covid-19 pandemic brought hurdles on the path of development and the IHDI value slipped down to 0.481 in 2020 and to 0.475 in 2021.
Source: United Nations Development Program
In 2016, the inequality in life expectancy was 20.4%. The inequality in life expectancy has witnessed a constant decrease over the years as it dropped to 19.6% the next year and further dropped to 16.9% in 2021. The drop in inequality in life expectancy can be attributed to better medical facilities and improved healthcare in India due to the effective implementation of health related schemes as noted by the Human Development Report 2021/22. The Inequality in education has not underwent any significant changes as it was 38.7% in 2016 and remained at the same level till 2018. The year 2019 witnessed a decline in inequality in education as it dropped down to 36.9% but has been at the same level for the third consecutive year. One of the major indicators of the IHDI, inequality in income has not even changed by 0.1% in last five years as it has been recorded at 19.4% and has remained the same in 2021 too. Coming over to the overall loss from HDI to IHDI, it dropped down from 26.6% in 2016 to 25% in 2021.
Though India has been improving its performance in different fields and ensuring better facilities for its citizens, various indicators show that it has got a long way with hurdles in achieving the goal of reducing inequality and bridging the gap between the haves and have-nots.
