Human Development Index

The Human Development Index (HDI) is another widely used index — but unlike a price or production index, it is a broad measure of the overall development of a country rather than of prices or physical output. It is introduced here as one of the important index numbers, being a summary measure that you may already have encountered in Class X.

The key idea is that a nation's progress cannot be judged by income alone. The HDI is therefore a composite index that combines several dimensions of well-being — broadly, a long and healthy life, access to knowledge (education), and a decent standard of living — into a single comparative figure. Because it rolls these different aspects of development into one number, the HDI allows countries to be ranked and compared on human development, dra …