The Human Development Index (HDI) is the normalized measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, standard of living, and GDP per capita for countries worldwide. It is an improved standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare and thus human development. Although this index makes an effort to simplify human development, it is much more complex than any index or set of indicators.
The 2007 report showed a small increase in world HDI in comparison with the previous year's report. This rise was fueled by a general improvement in the developing world, especially of the least developed countries group. This marked improvement at the bottom was offset with a decrease in HDI of high income countries.
Read more about this topic: Human Development (humanity)
Famous quotes containing the words human, development and/or index:
“The universe appears to me like an immense, inexorable torture-garden.... Passions, greed, hatred, and lies; law, social institutions, justice, love, glory, heroism, and religion: these are its monstrous flowers and its hideous instruments of eternal human suffering.”
—Octave Mirbeau (1850–1917)
“John B. Watson, the most influential child-rearing expert [of the 1920s], warned that doting mothers could retard the development of children,... Demonstrations of affection were therefore limited. “If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say goodnight. Shake hands with them in the morning.””
—Sylvia Ann Hewitt (20th century)
“Exile as a mode of genius no longer exists; in place of Joyce we have the fragments of work appearing in Index on Censorship.”
—Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)