Blog Topic #5

The human development index measures three aspects of human development. These three aspects include living a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy), being educated (measured by adult literacy and gross enrollment in education) and having a decent standard of living (measured by purchasing power parity, PPP, income). There are several things the index does not measure including gender and income inequality. The HDI is meant to show the relationship between income and well-being. To be included in the HDI, a country must be a member of the United Nations. Not all United Nations members are included. There must be enough data from a country in order for it to be included in the index. However, there are some information gaps for some of the included counties. The HDI geographic pattern shows most of the medium to low developed countries to be in Africa and Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa is probably ranked so low in HDI because life expectancy is low, their standard of living is low, and the literacy rate is low. Also, many of the countries in Africa are less developed countries and that probably plays a part in why they are ranked so low on the index.