Human Development Report, 2020

December 16, 2020

The United Nations Development Programme recently released the Human Development Report. According to the report India slipped to 131st rank among 189 countries in the Human Development Index. Human development index of India was 0.640. In 2019 India ranked at 129. This year’s index has incorporated new parameters namely CO2 emission and Material foot print and introduced Planetary pressures–adjusted Human Development Index (PHDI)

Key findings of the report

Norway, Ireland and Switzerland occupied the top 3 ranks in the report. These countries were followed by Hong Kong, Iceland and Germany at 4th, 5th and 6th places respectively.
China was ranked at 85th position and Pakistan was ranked at 154th position.
The Human Development Index is prepared based on the indicators such as life expectancy at birth, political participation of women and maternal mortality rate.
According to the report the life expectancy at birth in India was 69.9, maternal mortality ratio was at 174. The maternal mortality ratio is the death per hundred thousand live birth. The share of seats in Parliament by women in India was 11.6% (as of 2017).
The report says that India spent 3.8 % of its GDP on education between 2012 and 2017. Literacy rate in India was still lowest to 74%. It was much lower as compared to the other G20 countries.
The gross enrolment ratio of the pre-primary schooling was 13%. It was 75% for secondary schooling and 27% for tertiary schooling.
The labour force participation in the category of females was 27.2 % and in the category of males was 78.8 percent. The gender differences in labour force participation was around 51.6 % which was one among the highest