Human Development Report 2021-22

Why in News?

According to the Human Development Report 2021-22, India’s rank on the Human Development Index (HDI) has slipped from 130 in 2020 to 132 in 2022, in line with a global fall in HDI scores in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

What are the Key Highlights of the Report?

• Human Development Index:
  • Drop in Life Expectancy: A large contributor to the Human Development Index’s recent decline is a global drop in life expectancy, down from 72.8 years in 2019 to 71.4 years in 2021.
    • The last two years have had a devastating impact on billions of people worldwide when crises like Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine hit back to back and interacted with sweeping social and economic shifts and dangerous planetary changes.

  • Top Performers:

    • European states were among the best overall performers, with as many as 8 in the top 10 of the list.

    • These are Switzerland (1, 0.962), Norway (2, 0.961), Iceland (3, 0.959), Denmark (6, 0.948), Sweden (7, 0.947), Ireland (8, 0.945), Germany (9, 0.942) and Netherlands (10, 0.941).

  • Asian Region:

    • At 73 and with an index value of 0.782, Sri Lanka emerged as the best performer in the Indian sub-continent. The island nation was followed by China (79 and 0.768), Bhutan (127 and 0.666), Bangladesh (129 and 0.661), India, Nepal (143 and 0.602) and Pakistan (161 and 0.544).

  • Indian Perspective:
    • Human Development Index: India’s HDI value stood at 0.633 in 2021, which was lower than the world average of 0.732. In 2020, too, India recorded a decline in its HDI value (0.642) in comparison to the pre-Covid level of 2019 (0.645).
    • Life expectancy: In 2021, India’s life expectancy at birth was recorded at 67.2 years.
    • Schooling: Expected years of schooling at 11.9 years, mean years of schooling at 6.7 years,
    • Gross National Income: The gross national income per capita stood at USD 6,590.
    • Gender Inequality Index: India has been ranked 122 on the Gender Inequality Index.

• Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index:

  • The IHDI indicates a percentage loss in HDI due to inequality. 

  • For India, the IHDI value for 2019 is 0.537 (16.8% overall loss). 

• Gender Development Index:

  • GDI measures disparities in the HDI by gender.

  • For India, the GDI value for 2021 is 0.490.

    • The key HDI metric where women seem to lag behind men the most is the income per capita.

• Gender Inequality Index: 

  • GII presents a composite measure of gender inequality using three dimensions:

    • Reproductive health,

    • Empowerment and

    • The labour market.

  • In GII, India is at the 122nd rank.

• Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI):

  • MPI captures the multiple deprivations that people in developing countries face in their health, education and standard of living.

  • As of 2019, India had more than 381 million who were suffering from multi-dimensional poverty. 

• Planetary pressures-adjusted Human Development Index:

  • It adjusts the HDI for planetary pressures in the Anthropocene to reflect a concern for intergenerational inequality, similar to the Inequality-adjusted HDI adjustment — which is motivated by a concern for intragenerational inequality.

  • The PHDI value can be interpreted as the level of human development adjusted by carbon dioxide emissions per person (production-based) and material footprint per person to account for excessive human pressure on the planet.

• Other insights:
  • Humans are not prepared for climate change: It stated that humans were unprepared for a world with climate crises like fires and storms and other planetary-level changes brought about due to the Anthropocene in recent years.
  • Population Decline of Insects: Without an abundance of insect pollinators, humans face the mind-boggling challenge of growing food and other agricultural products at scale.
    • As insects are important because of their diversity, ecological role and influence on agriculture, human health and natural resources.
    • They create the biological foundation for all terrestrial ecosystems, further, they cycle nutrients, pollinate plants, disperse seeds, maintain soil structure and fertility, control populations of other organisms and provide a major food source for other taxa.
  • Microplastic menace: Plastics are now everywhere, in country-sized garbage patches in the ocean, in protected forests and distant mountaintops and in people’s lungs and blood.

Source: IE