Fact-Checking the HDI Tally

Why in News?

• The latest Human Development Index (HDI) reading released recently by UNDP ranked India at 132
• The article critically analyses the flaws in the computation methodology of HDI numbers and suggest corrections forward.

 

Findings of latest HDI report (2021)

• The latest HDI is part of the Human Development Report 2021-2022.
• India’s rank on the Human Development Index slipped from 130 in 2020 to 132 in 2021.
• Indeed, India’s rank has not improved over the last two decades.
• The latest HDI value (index score) of 0.633 places the country in the medium human development category, lower than its value of 0.645 in the 2020 report.
  • It is as lower than the world average of 0.732.
• This decline in the country’s performance from its previous level has been owed to a fall in life expectancy from 69.7 years in 2020 to 67.2 years in 2021.
• India’s expected years of schooling stand at 9 years, down from 12.2 years in the 2020 report.
  • The mean years of schooling although is up at 6.7 years from 6.5 years in the new report.
• The Gross National Income (GNI) per capita level is $6,590.

 

Global findings

• The index has been topped by Switzerland.
• 90% of countries have registered a reduction in their HDI value in 2020 or 2021.
• A large contributor to the HDI’s recent decline is a global drop in life expectancy, down from 72.8 years in 2019 to 71.4 years in 2021.

 

About HDI

• Description: HDI is a statistical tool used to measure a country's overall accomplishment in its social and economic dimensions, released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
  • It is the second most widely used indicator for measuring economic progress after national income statistics (GDP).
• Components: HDI has three components as follows
  • Health as measured by life expectancy at birth;
  • Education as measured by a combination of mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling; and
  • Income as measured by gross national income per capita (at purchasing power parity)
• Calculation: The final score is calculated as a geometric mean of the above three categories.

 

Flawed calculation

• Life expectancy estimation: Life expectancy at birth refers to the average number of years that a new-born can expect to live.
  • The estimate used for India was cut by 3. 67 years (70. 9 years to 67. 2 years) from 2019 to 2021.
• Pandemic induced: The UN agency claims that this cut reflects Covid-related mortality but three serious flaws were discovered in their estimate as follows:
• Misconstrued notion: It is a conceptual mistake to lower life expectancy at birth because as per overwhelming evidence, the Covid-19 virus only kills adults.
  • In effect, the UN indicated that Covid-19 will in around 20 years, impact today’s newborns with the same severity as at its peak in 2020-21. But this is a failed assumption without any evidence.
• Collating WHO data: UNDP has adjusted India’s mortality rates for “excess deaths” from Covid-19 as estimated by WHO.
  • According to WHO, India had around 7 million unreported excess deaths from Covid, almost one-third of the world total.
  • The Indian government had already objected to the WHO estimates by pointing out various flaws in their methodology such as use of media reports and use of parameters like test positivity rate which varied widely across the country.
  • Nevertheless, UNDP still used the WHO excess death numbers in their HDI calculation.
• About “Excess deaths”: It is defined as the difference between the total number of deaths that have occurred and the number of deaths that would have been expected in the absence of the pandemic i.e. a no-COVID-19 scenario.
• Erroneous picture: The UNDP’s reduction of 3. 67 years in India’s life expectancy is not justified even after including WHO’s flawed numbers.
• Demonstration: When the excess deaths of 4. 7 million are added to the registered numbers, deaths per lakh population in India stood at 375. 6.
  • This is still lower than that for the US (589), UK (505), Italy (570), Brazil (640), and so on.
  • Yet, the cut in life expectancy for the US is 1. 94 years, UK 0. 98 years, Italy 0. 70 years, Brazil 2. 7 years– all substantially lower than for India.
• Hence a series of “adjustments” ended up skewing the Indian data in HDI index.

 

Onus of blame

• It should be admitted that the fault is not always of the external agencies.
• Non timely updation: Government departments often do not update numbers in time for international surveys.
  • In the case of HDI, the data for expected years of schooling was not published till after the deadline. As a result, the previous year’s data was used by UNDP.
• Anti-India bias: However, the poor quality of Indian data is no justification for these findings since similar lacuna was found with regards to data for most of the countries ranked above India where similar adjustments are not made.

 

Way forward

• Prompt disclosure: As a first step, Indian government departments need to publish data in time for important indices.
  • This may be difficult as India’s financial year runs three months behind the calendar year, but an advance estimate can be published and revised later (same as for GDP).
• Appropriate framework: Secondly, Indian agencies should not just provide raw data to external agencies but take the extra step of calculating the relevant indicator. This is not difficult as standard methodologies are available.
  • For instance, the Registrar General of India should publish an official estimate for life expectancy every yea
  • This will reduce the scope for manipulation by external agencies and put the burden of proof on them.
• Continual engagements: As UNDP commonly uses official estimates for most countries, including developing countries; Indian government departments need to proactively engage with international indices and surveys, both to provide timely data and to challenge inaccurate estimates where appropriate.

 

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Source: Fact-Checking the HDI Tally