Q.What was the Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI), and how is it related to the HDI?
The Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI) was a composite development indicator used before the Human Development Index came into existence. It combined three specific indicators — the literacy rate, the infant mortality rate, and life expectancy at age one — into a single overall score. Notably, the PQLI deliberately excluded income altogether, focusing purely on outcomes related to physical well-being.
The PQLI matters today mainly for its historical role: it demonstrated, well before the HDI was introduced by the UNDP in 1990, that a country's development could and should be judged using indicators other than income alone. This idea — that health and education outcomes deserve to be tracked in their own right, not inferred from income — directly influenced the later design of the HDI, which built on the same basic insight but combined health and education indicators with an income measure rather than excluding income entirely. In this sense, the PQLI can be understood as an important conceptual predecessor to the modern HDI framework.
The PQLI (literacy, infant mortality, life expectancy at age one, excluding income) was an earlier composite development indicator that historically influenced and preceded the HDI, introduced in 1990.
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